RE: FW: IBM's RPG Strategy (was: Long Procedure Names)

My Gosh Scott, I think I love you!

-Bob Cozzi
www.RPGxTools.com
If everything is under control, you are going too slow.
- Mario Andretti


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Scott Klement
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 3:46 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: FW: IBM's RPG Strategy (was: Long Procedure Names)


> I'm more interested in writing Java code on a $500 PC that can be uploaded
> and run on a 400 without change.  If that Java code runs better on my $500
> PC than on a 400 then the 400 deserves a quick burial.

Java code DEFINITELY DEFINITELY DEFINITELY runs better on my $500 PC than 
it does on my iSeries!  By leaps and bounds!  By HUGE leaps and bounds!

And it still doesn't run well.


> But it doesn't.  The 400 has got one of the best JVMs in the world. 
> Whoever at IBM implemented Java on the 400 should get a medal.

You're out of your mind. I'm so tired of Java crashing on my '400 that 
it's ridiculous.  It's bad enough that it takes over a minute to run a 
"Hello World" program (if it's the first program to use the JVM in the 
job) but then when the @#(*% JVM crashes all the time with anything 
moderately complex, it just makes me sick.

I can do the same things in RPG in microseconds, and it's completely 
stable.


> Languages are tools.  Java, for many problems, is a better tool that RPG.
> I've got a process (CLLE & RPGLE) that sends out a CSV file as an
attachment
> using SNDDST.  But this limit the file name to what is supported in a
> document folder (12 chars).

But, that's a limitation of SNDDST, which is a REALLY outdated tool.  It's 
not a limitation of RPG!  You could write something that worked the same 
way as JavaMail does in RPG, and this is what would happen:

a) It would be easier to write in RPG than JavaMail was in Java.

b) It would run 10 times the speed.

c) It would require less memory.

d) It would be much more stable.

The reason you seem to like Java better isn't because it's a better tool 
-- it's because there's pre-existing software that's available to do what 
you want to do.

> It took me about a day to write a program that will send an email with a 
> file attachment from a directory using the Javamail API.

It took you a DAY to write a program that sends e-mail in Java? I was able 
to teach someone who had never done sockets programming before how to 
write an e-mail sending program from the ground up using sockets (which 
are a MUCH lower level interface) in under 2 hours.

Took me less than 3 minutes (I just did it now) to do the same thing in a 
Bourne Shell script, including making a mistake and having to re-test it.

> Runs great on my PC.  I uploaded my code and the Javamail Jar files to 
> the 400.  It also ran great on the 400 and attached a file in IFS. 
> Sweet!  I'm still not sure how to do that with RPG (got an article from 
> a coworker about it).

If portability is your primary objective, then Java is a good language. 
That's really what it does well -- and frankly, it's all it does well.
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