Re: RPG400-L Digest V3 #291

[Douglas Handy <dhandy1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Brad,

>You
>even mention VB, why is anyone still using VB.  It's as old as RPG, maybe
>even older if you follow it's roots back far enough.

Was this supposed to be sarcastic?  It is sometimes hard to tell the tone of a
written comment with emoticons.  That's like saying, "Why is anyone still using
e-RPG?  It's as old as a 1401 auto-coder and wired boards, if you follow it's
roots back far enough."

So what?  Both languages have matured.  I like and use both VB and RPG IV.  The
V5R1 version of RPG IV has little resemblance to original RPG, even while it
largely maintains compatibility with code which is decades old.  In fact, I
think it has maintained much more compatibility with legacy source (via
CVTRPGSRC) than Basic has over the same period.

The original BASIC was introduced in 1964 by Dartmouth College professors John
Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz.  (It was 25 years later when Bill Gates first talked
about a future visual Basic for a BYTE magazine article).  Kemeny and Kurtz had
previously tried other things like Dartmouth Simplified Code (Darsimco) in 1956,
but when Fortran came on the scene in 1957 Darsimco faded away.

Then they did Dartmouth Oversimpliefied Programming Experiment (DOPE) as an
experiment in a language targeted towards non-science users.  I suppose one
could argue that Darsimco and DOPE were the "roots" of BASIC, and thus go back
to 1956.  But most people would say BASIC was born in 1964.

I don't know the year when RPG first shipped as a compiler, but in the May 2001
issue of iSeries Magazine, Hans Boldt said "RPG has been around for at least 40
years."  This would make it pre-date Dartmouth BASIC by at least a few years,
but in the big picture I suppose that makes them close to the same age.

Doug

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