RE: Resistance to change (was free format question)

Compare the 2005 Corvette with the 1953 one.
Are they the same car?  No.
Are they the same name? Yes.
Do they still carry the same pride of ownership.  Yes.
Do the drivers of the 2005 still wave to the owners of the 1953?  Most 
likely.
Do they drool over each others car?  Most likely.

Compare RPGIV with RPGIII.
Do they both excel at producing reports?  Definitely.
Can RPGIV do most of what was done in RPGIII?  Yes.
Is RPGIV as stable as RPGIII?  I believe so.

Just because the syntax has changed, doesn't mean that the language has 
become something other than what it was.  RPG is still RPG.  That of 
course is my own personal opinion which is open to flaws based upon the 
owner of the opinion. :)

But a Vette, is still a Vette.

Ron Power
Programmer
Information Services
City Of St. John's, NL
P.O. Box 908
St. John's, NL
A1C 5M2
Tel: 709-576-8132
Email: rpower@xxxxxxxxxx
Website: http://www.stjohns.ca/
___________________________________________________________________________
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. - 
Sir Winston Churchill




"Raby, Steve \(GE Advanced Materials, consultant\)" <steve.raby@xxxxxx> 
Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
23/06/2005 12:48 PM
Please respond to
RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


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Subject
RE: Resistance to change (was free format question)







In my case, it's not "resistance to change"; if it were 
that, then why am I fluent, to varying degrees, in 3 
assemblers and over a dozen HLLs, in multiple dialetcs?

Likewise, RPG has a highly stylized syntax based on column 
positions, and it also has excellent file I/O, and an 
implicit "DO UNTIL LR IS TRUE" loop surrounding every 
program. If you don't bother learning how to use The 
Cycle, though, then there's little reason for you to be 
using RPG at all

I learnt the cycle but most programs I write and most I have seen these 
days do not use it, So if you are on an AS400/iSeries where the 
programming language used is RPG then if you don't use the cycle what are 
you supposed to code in?

, and if you take away the 
column-position-based syntax, you may end up with a great 
language, but it has ceased to be RPG.

But isn't that what the numbers at the end are for? To tell you its a new 
version? Just because it bears little resemblance to the original does not 
mean it is no longer RPG


Steve