RE: converting string to a numeric

Free format is great.
It makes it possible that all kind of programmers that have learned nasty 
languages as C, Java and so on can also create things on the AS/400 in the best 
language there is and in that way bringing new blood to the developers pool on 
the AS/400.
Because of Free they understand what they are doing.
For me that is the only reason why Free exist (and that is a very good reason)!
 
It is in no way a reason to start all kinds of wars between FixedFormat lovers 
and Free addicts. We can all exist without problems along each other.
 
If FreeFormat lovers think Free is more natural (because that is the way they 
have learned coding and they do not know nothing else), my pleasure.
 
If FixedFormat addict have problems to understand FreeFormat (because they are 
used to use the location of things to know it's meaning) and refuse to start 
using extra keystrokes to indicate what means what in Free, so be it.
 
The thing is that Free is not better than Fixed.
In Free and Fixed you can create exactly the same.
 
So I normally do things Fixed.
Not because I can not other.
Back in 1990 I came from C++ to the AS/400 and RPG.
Dear I loved that moment.
A real DBMS and external defined files, views, screens (do you remember the 
terrible programs to sort a file, to paint a screen, to....).
And the Gum (RPG) to fix it together?
OK, Fixed, at first difficult but:
- No searches anymore to find the mistyped Upper/Lower case names.
- No searches anymore to find the forgotten delimiter, forgotten...., 
forgotten.... that did not add up to the thing to do, but only to the 
language..... 
And now, I can't help, I like fixed.
I do not like to type to much.
I want to see at ones what what means.
I do not feel any constraint, have not any urge to use Free.
But do not see any reason why others would not use Free.
I could use Free when I think it is appropriate for a very specific part in a 
program.
I won't feel myself silly when I do.
 
Kind regards,
Eduard.
Chris Payne <CPayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If you're going to argue that RPG started as fixed format, and therefore
should not be used in free format, you could just as easily say that RPG was
designed for punch cards, and should not be keyed in using 5250 terminals.

Chris Payne

-----Original Message-----
From: rob@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:rob@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 9:20 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: converting string to a numeric



Can you actually see someone making the argument that an existing free
format language needed to be converted into fixed format?  If RPG had
started out as /free can you imagine people actually arguing for fixed
formatting?  Are there strong debates in other languages to convert them
into fixed format?

Rob Berendt
--
Group Dekko Services, LLC
Dept 01.073
PO Box 2000
Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com


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> Call me old-fashioned but because indicators are such dangerous little
> suckers I'd rather see an explicit SETON or SETOFF operation.
>
> Use numeric operations for numeric operands, character operations for
> character operands, and indicator operations for indicator operands.

AMEN! And leave languages that are naturally fixed-source-format AS
fixed-source-format: if you're working in FORTRAN, for example, you can
indent all you want BEYOND Column 7, but keep the statements at or beyond
that column, and the continuations in 6, and the labels in 1-5. When a
language is designed to have a fixed source format, free-formatting the
source just makes it harder to read.

You want free-format source? Use Pascal, C, ALGOL, PL/I, LISP, Java, or
Modula-2. They're designed for it.

--
JHHL


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