OOing RPG was RE: open source rpg compiler

["Steve Richter" <srichter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Hans Boldt
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 12:51 PM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: open source rpg compiler


Bartell, Aaron L. (TC) wrote:
> I wish so bad that I could quit using RPG and do my development in Java,
but
> the reality of it all is I exist in a shop where 99.9% of the programs are
> written in RPG.  If it doesn't get pointed out often then people won't
think
> that RPG OO is needed.  As for how hard it would be to make RPG OO, I have
> no idea - never written a compiler before.

Hans posted:

>Eric made my points already, that enhancing procedural languages to
>be object-oriented is never a good idea, and you end up with
>something kludgy, like C++.

You cant be serious! For the programmer, there doesnt have to be anything
kludgy about C++.

>Regarding the 99.9% of your code that's written in RPG, how is an OO
>language going to help that? For OO to benefit your shop, you'd have
>to rewrite your apps anyways, and so you might then just as well go
>to a true OO language.

A big first step toward OOing RPG is to allow a proc to be a member of a
data structure.

d Pr_Employee   ds                qualified
d  Name                      30a  varying
d  Number                     7a

d Display       pr                MemberProcOfDataStuct( Pr_Employee )

d Employee      ds                likeds(Pr_Employee)

 /free
      Employee.Name    = 'Betty' ;
      Employee.Number  = 'a1234' ;
      Employee.Display( ) ;

      return ;
** -------------------- Pr_Employee.Display -----------------------
p Display       b
d Display       pi                MemberProcOfDataStuct( Pr_Employee )
 /free
      fDisplay( Name + ' ' + Number ) ;
 /end-free
p               e

And ILE does not have a fit over this because the RPG compiler would simply
insert a C++ like "this" parm as parm1 of the actual Pr_Employee_Display
proc.

-Steve Richter