Re: /FREE RPG compiler errors

<rant on>
I don't mean to re-open a whole can of worms, and I certainly am not
aiming this at Barbara personally, but this in a nutshell is why it will
probably take me, personally, a while to make the switch to /free.

>From the discussions so far, I've gathered that /free is better because:
a) it's more readable
b) you have more features available
c) it's the wave of the future

(interestingly, these are the same things that made RPGIV better than
RPG/400 . . .)

Like many people on the list, I imagine, I work in a shop that has a huge
library of legacy code written in RPG/400 that still runs great but needs
constant changes and enhancements as our business (and management :-)
changes and grows. And I'm not afraid of change -- I've been the most
enthusiastic adopter of RPGIV in our shop; I've also done a fair amound of
coding in Visual Basic (both Excel macros and executables), and I've been
tapped to become the second Notes/Domino programmer, which I'm looking
forward to.

I love RPGIV because of b) -- more features -- and if I have to maintain
an RPG/400 program I'll usually take the time to use CVTRPGSRC and convert
it. But once in there, I want to use the new features: IF syntax, EVALs,
BIFs, so I've got a problem. If I just start sticking them in, IMHO I've
created serious readability issues, but if I go through and change things
around it takes a lot of time, so a simple program change becomes a half-
or day-long project. Maybe I'm too picky, but I can't IMAGINE just adding
in some RPGIV syntax over here and a little /free over there and just
leaving it like that. This was a big enough problem for me that I finally
sat down and wrote my own conversion program, so now I can take the output
from CVTRPGSRC and run it through my routine and it cleans up about 90% of
the mess.

The reason I go through all this is that I don't want the next programmer
(or myself six months down the road) to be scratching their head wondering
what's going on with MOVEs and EVALs all mixed together, or different IF
syntaxes, or whatever. IMHO, the biggest factor in readability is
CONSISTENCY, and I try pretty hard not to leave things in worse shape than
I found them. I'll go to the trouble for RPGIV, because I think it _is_ a
much better language, but it's definitely more work up front, and frankly
it's a pita.

So why would I add /free to the mix? More features? The things I've heard
about are nice, but (meaning no offense) nothing I can't live quite
comfortably without. Readability? I dunno -- I don't really have a problem
with RPG (and I've only been seriously programming in it for four years,
having spent decades in other languages, so it's not like it's the only
thing I know). Personally, I don't find complex VB code particularly
readable -- in the sense of just looking it over and knowing exactly
what's going on, without having to spend some time figuring it out -- but
maybe that's just me. Consistency and modularity are more important to me
than being able to indent IF statements -- not that I wouldn't enjoy being
able to do it, but it's not worth going to a huge amount of trouble for.
And converting whole programs to /free sounds like a whole lot of trouble.
I hope I'm stating the obvious in saying that my boss doesn't pay me to
keep re-working existing programs in "new and improved" syntaxes -- he
pays me to provide tools to solve business problems and address business
needs. If the new syntaxes help with that, great -- he likes change, too
-- but the syntaxes are not the point of what I'm supposed to be doing.

So the reason I'll probably go to /free eventually is c) -- it's the wave
of the future, and after a while either it will have enough compelling
features to make it worth it or IBM will stop supporting fixed-column
RPGIV and that will be that.. But right now I'm no hurry -- not because I
think /free is bad, but because it's going to be a lot of (non-productive)
work to make the switch, and I don't like having to do non-productive work.

<rant off>

Just my $.02 and personal opinion. ymmv

rpg400-l@midrange.com writes:
>If I was only adding a few
>of lines, I'd pass on /free.  If I was changing a significant part of
>the code, I'd rewrite the section I was working on.  Or, I might make a
>new /free module/program for that file and call the program from the
>first program.
>
>Each shop has to decide how to procede.  But the issue is similar to
>dealing with converted RPG III code that has
>
>C          A        IFEQ      'X'
>C          A        OREQ      'Y'
>
>When you're changing the code following that IFEQ/OREQ, what do you do? 
>What if you're adding a case for 'Z'?


Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@juddwire.com