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On 03/01/2006, at 10:37 AM, Mike Pantzopoulos - (H/O) wrote:
I have been trying to think of the pros & cons of free form vs fixed form. Personally I would prefer to use free-form. However, trying to be fair and balanced, I was trying to think of arguments as to why we should not move to free form. I can't think of any. Does anybody have any views on why a move to free-form is not a good thing?
It depends on which release you are on. In 510 and 520 there are some things that can only be done in fixed-form. Also embedded SQL has limitations that interfere with pure free-form. The solution to these is to put the fixed-form code in procedures thus getting it out of the way. I understand the SQL issues are being corrected.
I still write my RPG IV in fixed-form because I think it's more "RPG-like" and I hate some of the things they've done with the language syntax to support free-form. It also makes it easier to compile back to a previous release. I'm not happy about the wasted space on the left in fixed-form but I can live with it. If I only had to write code for 530 I'd probably do more with free-form. When they fix the stupid 80 column limitation on free-form and give me an OPTION(*FREEFORM) so the compiler will presume free-form unless told otherwise I'll reconsider it.
However, other than the previous release compatibility issue, there are no good reasons not to use free-form RPG. You will have to refactor old code that uses op-codes not supported in free-form but that's probably a good thing--especially given how much crap 34/36 code is still out there running on 530.
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