Re: converting string to a numeric

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Cozzi wrote:
> RPG started out fixed, so whether or not it started out free is irrelevant. 
> Some reasons the free-format stuff isn't 100% yet, is because it is new. For
> example, when a new language, such as Java arrived on the scene, it had so
> many shortcomings and eventually became better (although the idea of Java is
> like saying English should be spoken by all humans in all countries... It
> just doesn't make any sense to me at all, but I, as usual, digress. <g>)
> The point is there is a lot of legacy in RPGIV/RPGIII's columnar
> instructions. Granted there are some (many?) at IBM who think that the
> MOVE/MOVEL opcodes should not exist (why aren't their equivalent in /FREE?)
> and those that think the truncating numbers on an assignment should always
> cause an error. Well, I could suggest that some people, way back when choose
> RPG and the S/3x platforms because they were unlike all the other systems.
> That is they did things in a way so that we could get the job of running
> business applications done. 
> I could go on, but it could turn ugly. :)
> -Bo

Bob: Since you raise the point of the S/3x machines of past decades, it 
should also be pointed out that the computing machines of today are 
nothing like the S/3, S/32, S/34, etc. machines of the past. Up until 
relatively recently, programming has been largely concerned with the use 
of expensive and limited resources, such as memory. Application design 
was influenced largely by these limitations.

But that was then, this is now. Memory today is cheap, and you don't 
have to worry as much about allocating lots of storage. CPU's are now 
lightning fast, so performance isn't so much a concern. And so 
programming now is fundamentally different. The economics of programming 
have shifted with CPU and RAM now commodities. And so now it's become 
more important to use programmers more efficiently rather than to use 
the computing hardware more efficiently.

What's my point? Sure, the RPG legacy is important. And as far as I can 
predict, there will always be an RPG compiler to compile legacy RPG code 
on the iSeries and its successors. But the goalposts have moved since 
the S/3x days. Programming is different now, and older programming 
styles are becoming more and more passe.

As Chris P has pointed out, no one - NO ONE - in any other language 
community would (or could) even imagine Java or C or C++ or Perl or 
Python or whatever as a fixed-form language. And no one in any of those 
community could possibly imagine assignment operations that worked like 
RPG's MOVE and MOVEA.

Cheers! Hans