RE: Adoption of new RPG techniques

["Bartell, Aaron L. (TC)" <ALBartell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I somewhat reluctantly step into this fray...

LOL!  You had better look out, there are things a-flyin' <BG>


<Terry>
At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I too find the
free form code MORE difficult to read, especially when in a source member
with embedded SQL and fixed-format calcs.  A member littered with /exec
/end exec, /free /end free is just about the homeliest thing you can find.
</Terry>

You make my point even better!  Why don't you pound on IBM's door saying
that they should get the SQL stuff free format?  That way you could use free
format throughout your code without having to go back and forth between
/Free and /End-Free.  Better yet, why don't they get rid of all specs
(H,F,P,D, etc) and go all /free format?

>Now I'm not advocating a return to left-side indicators and all that fun
stuff, but clean, structured, column-oriented code is plenty easy for
anyone with any RPG experience to follow, debug and modify.

Here is why I am probably different from you.  I only do about 60 - 70% of
my coding in RPG, the rest is in Java.  Going back to RPG from Java is
brutal because of fixed format, that is why I have embraced /free with open
arms.  It is a breath of fresh air for RPG.  As would be so many other
enhancements which are very numerous.

Aaron "Trying to change the world one programmer at a time" Bartell


-----Original Message-----
From: Terry@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Terry@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 2:48 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: RE: Adoption of new RPG techniques







Joe / Aaron--

I somewhat reluctantly step into this fray...

While I don't agree with everything Joe says on these fora, I must agree
with him here.  At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I too find the
free form code MORE difficult to read, especially when in a source member
with embedded SQL and fixed-format calcs.  A member littered with /exec
/end exec, /free /end free is just about the homeliest thing you can find.

Aaron, in the real world, where maintenance of existing code is where a
bulk of the effort is expended, you really have to make your code easy for
others to follow.  It's absolutely essential.

Now I'm not advocating a return to left-side indicators and all that fun
stuff, but clean, structured, column-oriented code is plenty easy for
anyone with any RPG experience to follow, debug and modify.  Until someone
can show me the real advantage of using free-form coding, (REAL advantage,
not just "pretty" indenting and absence of EVAL) I'll probably use it
sparingly at most.

Terry Richardson
Vermont Information Processing, Inc.
terry@xxxxxxxxxx

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