RE: Adding pointers to RPG language.

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 boldt@ca.ibm.com wrote:
>
> TCP/IP programs probably should not be written in RPG.  And not just
> because of it's poor pointer support.  Lack of proper thread support
> in RPG is a big limiting factor in TCP programming.
>

a) You don't need pointers to do TCP/IP programming in RPG.  I use them
     so that I can have multiple "copies" of a data structure.  But the
     lack of ability to do a "typedef" type of thing is what's lacking
     in RPG, not poor pointer support!

b) If you think pointers make things complicated...   threads are 10 times
     worse.  Making sure you've found every situation where a function or
     piece of data needs to be serialized...  Avoiding deadlocks...  these
     things lead to those weird programs that just lock up occasionally,
     without any obvious rhyme or reason.

c) Although server apps might do well to be multithreaded, that's really
     only helpful from a performance standpoint.

d) TCP/IP client apps almost never need thread support.   Although, the
     fact that you cannot use select() on a display file is quite
     frustrating and limiting, I don't think threads would be a good
     solution to that problem.  In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say
     that they'd be a bad solution to that problem.   Every other OS in
     the world has a way to do a select() or similar function between a
     standard display device and a socket except for OS/400.