RE: free-format move *USA date value to 6-digit numeric in YMDformat

Herein lies the greats "downside" to RPGIV:
> V5R2:
>    numFld = %int(%char(dateFld:*YMD0));

> V5R3:
>    numFld = %dec(dateFld:*YMD);

So various ways to solve problems based on the release level. And I don't
mean they added XML support in V5R4 and it should be PTF'd back to V3R1, I
mean in V5R1, V5R2 and V5R3 there are subtle "enhancements" to the language
that are all related (such as the example above) in which partial solutions
are introduced in a point release and then the next part of the solution is
introduced in the next point release and so on. 
Try teaching RPG IV to students at various release levels. Crap like the
above is becoming more and more wide-spread in the language. "If you're on
V5R3 you do it this way, if you're on 5.2 you do it this way, but if you're
on 5.1 you can get around it by doing it this way..."

IBM should stabilize RPG IV at a version boundary and release ALL
enhancements to that version/release boundary. That is all V5 enhancements
should work on V5R1 and later. If it won't work on V5R1 then they have to
wait until V6 to ship the enhancement. 

I just don't understand why IBM doesn't do this. Sure there are political
reason or fake technical reasons, but who cares about those?
-Bob Cozzi