RE: First Free Format

Personally, I found the C style switch statement kinda limiting, with the 
Pascal/RPG giving me a lot more leeway.

A lot easier to say:
Select
When CondA = '1' And CondB = 2
  ... do this...
etc..

Then have to code:
Switch CondA
Case '1':
   If CondB = 2
      ... do something...
etc...

The first, IMO, is easer to understand.

You are right, though, I think that compiler design decisions are not as much 
influenced by speed of execution but by becoming as high level as possible.  
Everyone knows (or should) that Objects are no wear near optimized for speed.

Regards,

Jim Langston

-----Original Message-----
From: Hans Boldt [mailto:boldt@ca.ibm.com]

No argument there.  When the SELECT statement was being designed,
there was IMHO a bad case of "creeping featuritis" going around in
the RPG/400 team.  (That was when I was busy with the SAA RPG
compiler.) Initially, the intention for SELECT was something like a
Pascal style case statement or C style switch statement.  In those
statements, you get a fast selection of the alternative, since it's
usually implemented by a simple table lookup.  But functionality won
out over performance considerations.