RE: Resistance to change (was free format question)

You can take any RPG III program written under any version of the operating
system, convert it to RPG 4 syntax, compile it, and it will work exactly as
it did before. The mere fact that the columns don't line up in the same
place as they did before does not, in my opinion, constitute "[having] lost
all the defining characteristics of the one it evolved from, but continuing
to call it what it no longer is." Nor does the fact that you can now program
without the cycle (or eliminate it altogether) detract from the anything
about the language. Should Chevrolet call the 2005 Malibu something else
because it has a number of new features that the 2004 model didn't have, and
no longer resembles last year's model?

Change is not a bad thing. And if you don't want it, then you don't have to
have it. I, for one, would rather use the new features of the language. That
does not warrant renaming the language I use. It can still generate reports
just fine, in any case.


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of James H H Lampert
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 10:00 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
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?

What I DO resist, and resist vigorously, is the practice of evolving a
langauge to where it has lost all the defining characteristics of the one it
evolved from, but continuing to call it what it no longer is. For example,
BASIC is a language, evolved from FORTRAN, that requires line numbers, uses
them as statement labels, and has no local variables or external calls. The
QBASICs TBASICS, and so forth, evolved from BASIC, but are NOT themselves
BASIC, having lost every characteristic that defines BASIC, and I refuse to
call them BASIC. They are DERIVATIVES of BASIC, not DIALECTS.

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,
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.

--
JHHL
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