RE: RPGIV: RPGIII to get a facelift? -- RPG400-L

Note: upgrade to the latest WDSc and you won't have to hop over to CODE
to convert to /free.

I agree that /free and /end-free are a pain to write :-( But if you
can't justify the move to it with having to write /free and /end-free I
am guessing if they ever took those away you still wouldn't move to the
new format.  Sure /free and /end-free are a pain, but the code
indentation you get far out weighs that minor distraction!

On your note for getting H,F,D.. Specs "free", I used to complain about
the same thing.  But when I took a unbiased look at it (meaning not
trying to make it java :-) I realized that those specs keep my program
declarations looking pretty clean. We have the ability to accomplish a
lot of declaration in one line of code with RPG when using a D spec, and
keep it clean and informative. Thanks to Jon Paris for making me see the
light on that one :-)

Aaron Bartell


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 2:15 AM
To: rpgiv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: RPGIV: RPGIII to get a facelift?


I think IBM should focus 100% of their efforts on completing /FREE. 
Until RPG is a completely free-form language, it's incomplete and it
does nothing to bring new recruits into the fold.  I've talked with
several "older" programmers who feel no need to move to /FREE because H,
F, D, and O specs are still fixed-format.  Younger programmers just turn
their nose up at the current neither-fish-nor-fowl /FREE implementation.

Seeing a moderately contemporary progam littered with /END-FREE and
/FREE is more than moderately annoying.  I can use my service program
library to handle MOVE issues (and others) but the lack of a free-form
GOTO/TAG is a burr under my coding saddle.  My standard structure for
handling a rich mixture of command keys, help panels, and lookups is not
well-suited for the glib suggestion in the Reference manual to "use
other operation codes, such as LEAVE, LEAVESR, ITER, and RETURN"
instead of GOTO.  Is there a technical reason GOTO and TAG can't be
free-formed?  Or is this the Programming Police in action, telling us a
complex set of nested loops for flow control promotes program
readability?  I'm thinking about my customers' junior programmers trying
to make sense out of Nested Loop Soup.

Like most of us, I spent a lot of time in non-/FREE code, and I'd like
to convert it to /FREE without rewriting it.  It's well-structured code
(not spaghetti); then I use CODE (i.e. leave WDSC, hop into CODE) to
convert it, and it gets ugly with /END-FREE and /FREE from dealing with
the unsupported op codes.

We have a tool, /FREE, to cut through layers of to-do lists.  It would
be a better tool if it were sharper, and charging for the rusty blades
of old, less efficient tools doesn't serve any purpose other than to
annoy the small number of customers requiring the facility for program
maintenance.

-reeve


On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 15:22:28 -0500, Bob Cozzi <cozzi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> I spent one day at COMMON last week and talked with several of the IBM

> Canada RPG IV developers.  One of the questions that was asked was if 
> IBM could/should start charging for the RPGII and RPGIII compilers 
> (some people call RPGIII, "RPG400").
> 
> Anyway, I suggested that IBM should enhance RPG IV with two new
features:
> 
> 1) Allow blank lines in the source code
> 2) Support the compiler parameters in the H spec, and translate those 
> parms when the CVTRPGSRC command is used.
> 
> Without leading your responses: I'm wondering if you feel charging for

> RPGIII would help/encourage you to move to RPGIV more aggressively?
> 
> -Bob
> 
> 
> www.RPGxTools.com
> "Free your Limitations"
> Now with CGILIB - The best CGI RPG library available.
> 
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> 
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
> 
>


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