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

Here's a brand new keyboard... but you can't have the t and e keys....

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




Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
2005/12/28 03:01 PM
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RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


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







> 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.

No kidding.  I'm very tired of these "half-written" features that RPG 
seems to get.

At various releases we have had all of the following:

- Pointers without pointer arithmetic
- No MOVE in free-format, but no way to convert char to number
- %char() not converting numbers to character
- %dec() and %int() not converting character to number.
- %dec() and %int() not converting dates to numbers
- DSPLY op-code and requirement for at least a space in the factor 1
- Read data into a data structure, but only for program described files
- Read data into a DS, but only if you use the record format name and 
LIKEREC
- Prototypes, but no way to pass a data structure.
- LIKEDS but not with an array.
- LIKEDS with an array, but no LOOKUP or SORTA

It just seems like they leave out things that they know people will need. 
They introduce half of what we need at once, and introduce the rest at 
some point in the future.

This leads to poor adoption of the new techniques, because they're awkward 

at first.  Once they become less awkward, people don't adopt them because 
they have to remain compatible with old releases.

It also leads to it being difficult to teach anything, because you have to 

teach people 10 different ways of doing everything.