Re: Free Form RPG Opinions Wanted

[Douglas Handy <dhandy1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe,

>If I am a shop that's running just ducky on RPG II style code, and I have
>programmers who program that way, and we're making our numbers and beating
>our competition and doing what we need to do, then how can you possibly
>justify making us change our ways?  

Whoa.  Who said anything about making you change your ways?  You can still run
RPG II code through CRTS36RPG if you want!  And you can most certainly continue
to use MOVE and fixed format calcs if you want programmers to continue to
program that way.

>No, I'm saying that as you add new things to the language, if it's just as
>easy to make them available in RPG IV as it is in RPG FF, then please do so.

And IBM did that.  Witness SORTA.  Now, could they also implement your
suggestion for extended factor2 variants of opcodes like CHAIN?  It is not my
position to say.

>Because I would counter that any programmer who doesn't understand every
>opcode he uses and the side effects thereof is in my opinion a bad
>programmer.

But I *do* understand the MOVE opcode and the side effects thereof.  I've used
it since 1979.  And that is precisely why I *don't* consider MOVE that
"readable" of an opcode.  To know the side effects you have to know more than
the language syntax -- you have to know the precise attributes of the operands.

More to the point, when you change field attributes, it is possible to introduce
new bugs into existing code because now a MOVE operates different than it has
for years.

>This isn't kid stuff, it isn't supposed to be easy, and if you can't take
>the time to look at a compile listing, then you ought to be thinking about
>alternate lines of employment.  

Why should I have to consult a compile listing just to see what a MOVE operation
is really doing?  Why *shouldn't* a move operation be easy to understand?

Doug