RE: Benefits of Sub-procedures

["Bob Cagle" <bcagle@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks everyone for all of the responses.

Yes, I am the IT manager here, but it is a one-man shop where I support
JD Edwards World.  So, all of new development is done in RPGIV and I
utilize sub-procedures and service programs and /Free as I see fit
unless it is a direct modification to a JDE program, in which case I
revert to what they use, RPG/400.

The reason I asked the question in the first place - a colleague of mine
and I gave a presentation earlier this week to our user group titled
"Intro to ILE RPGIV".  The whole purpose was to just explain the basics
of converting an RPG/400 program to ILE RPGIV and to explain some of the
concepts.  We explained several of the benefits during the presentation,
but yet this was the first question we were asked afterwards - why use
them?

I thought we had explained it well enough.

Another horror story I have heard in the past year - another colleague
of mine had written a stand-alone application completely in RPGIV.  He
even designed his database with 10-character field names and date and
time fields.  He used sub-procedures.  Then he cut his hand with a
band-saw and was out on medical leave for 2 1/2 months.

Needless to say, one of his managers had to make a change to his app.
She didn't understand any of it, so, she re-wrote the entire thing in
RPG/400.  When he came back off of medical leave, he was told he could
not use any RPGIV at all, much less the database enhancements.  Many of
you will say that this manager should be fired, and you're right.  But,
she just happens to be the boss in IT - who's going to fire her?  The
CFO who knows nothing of programming?

While there's nothing I can do about my friend's situation, it still
makes me livid mad, because it was me that got him started in RPGIV
several years ago when we worked together at another company.

There are too many individuals like my friend's manager that are in
power in IT departments that are just like her.  They are the ones that
we need to convert, but how?

Again, thanks for all the responses.  I am going to try and consolidate
all of these benefits into a single document that I will be able to use
at our next presentation. 

Bob Cagle
IT Manager
Lynk, Inc.
913-492-9202 x41