Re: Adoption of new RPG techniques

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Pluta wrote:
> How is fixed format holding back programming?  RPG IV added real
> functionality, from procedures to ILE interoperability to a whole slew
> of BIFs.  Those were real enhancements.  What does /free add that gets
> RPG into "this centuries programming model(s)"?

/free breaks you free from the limited number of characters available 
for variable names.  At first that doesn't seem like a big deal, but 
consider something like qualified data structures and their fields:

mydatastruct.myfield

won't fit in factor 1.  To use such a field you need free format code 
(unless you use the "loose fixed format" of eval+extended factor 2).  Or 
consider something like the C contruct of pointer referencing within a 
struct:

MyStruct->structmember

The "->" is not allowed in fixed format, though I suppose the rules 
could be changed to allow it.

Though not really due to fixed format but related, some bifs could 
benefit to a similar relaxing of format, like %editc.  It might be nice 
to have user selected editing via a method like:

characterfield = %editc(numericfield:get_user_edit_pref(parm))

Further, I'm not sure of how well fixed format handles function calls 
with other functions as parameters since I haven't tried.  I would be 
surprised if it were as neat as:

myfunction (parm1, parm2, anotherfunction(parm3, parm4))

James Rich