Re: Free Form RPG Opinions Wanted

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Pluta wrote:
> Can you write an ERP system in Python in three lines, Hans?  Write an MRP
> generation.  Write a finite forward scheduler.  Write any of those things,
> and I'll agree with you about Python.  But see, you said it yourself, Python
> has a great class library - that is, other people's code.  It's not the
> language you rave about, it's the amount of pre-written code you can call.
> But if the code ain't there, you can't do it. ...

Why not use code that's already written if it's available? After 
all, one of the best attributes a programmer can have is laziness, 
eh? Why the urge to write everything yourself? Is code you write 
yourself somehow "better" than pre-written code available in an API, 
in a class or function library, or in an open source or commercial 
service program? Even if you could write code that's somehow better 
for your application, using existing code (if available) can help 
you implement a solution much faster. That's true in *any* language, 
and in any operating system.

An ERP system in Python? Why not? Likewise, would you implement an 
HTTP server in RPG? Or Space Shuttle mission design applications in 
RPG? Or CGI (that is computer graphics) applications in RPG? Or 
project tracking applications in RPG? Or pharmaceutical 
identification applications in RPG? That's a small sample of the 
types of applications in use written in Python. It's even being used 
by some groups in IBM! (Actually, for the last RPG enhancement 
survey, I used a Python program to summarize the results.)

I agree that Python isn't quite up to commercial applications 
standards, if only because the existing language and class libraries 
don't properly handle decimal data. But that's still not stopping 
some people from developing ERP apps in Python.

Of course that doesn't help you if you're dealing with existing code 
written in some specific language. All the new language features and 
all the new languages and tools don't help much at in that arena. 
But that's true everywhere, and not just in the RPG world with the 
/FREE debate. If your existing application is written in RPG, other 
languages don't help much, and vice versa.

> You want to make RPG programming easier, fine.  Just do it fairly and
> evenly.  Removing the MOVE instruction is neither.  But then again, I'm
> going to do something you neglected to do... I'm going to ask people if they
> like the MOVE, and how it affects their planned adoption of free-form RPG.
> I'll let you know what I find out.

How many times must you be told before you understand: The MOVE 
opcode is not disappearing. If you want to continue using it, fine 
by me. If people put off moving to free-form because it doesn't 
support MOVE, then that's okay too, as far as I'm concerned. The 
choice is there, and you can choose to take it or not.

The bottom line is this: Free-form calcs were added to the language 
to help programmers write *new* applications. If nothing else, it is 
a statement that we in IBM fully expect that RPG will indeed still 
be used for new applications in the future, programmed using more 
modern standards.

Cheers! Hans