RE: IFS files and VARPG

 >> Now, what about VARPG? How does it open a stream file? No brainer right?
It'll obviously do it the same way RPG does. Wrong! It uses F-specs. To me
THAT is obfuscation.

I was going to stay out of this but ...

You are making the classic mistake of ignoring history - and in this case
that gives you a completely false sense of the situation.

When VARPG was being designed, conventional RPG could not handle IFS files -
at all.

So, when deciding how to support local PC files the VARPG designers did
exactly what you are suggesting, they asked themselves "How does RPG do
it?".  The answer of course was F-specs.  Voila!  Simple - make VARPG handle
PC files the same way - through F-specs.  So that's what was done.

Subsequently when RPG IV was opened up to being able to interface to C
functions, one of the effects of that support was that RPG could now access
open() etc. and handle PC files, among other things.  This was not something
that was specifically "designed" to provide PC file support - it just came
about as a by product of prototyping.

Interestingly you never made the point (as Booth did) that RPG IV should
provide native support - something that many users have requested by the
way.  But history says that that is the natural way things should perhaps
have gone.

One last point that everyone seems to have missed.  If you _want_ to handle
files in VARPG via open() etc. - there is nothing to prevent you from doing
so.  Indeed many VARPG users do that to gain greater control over files than
the native interface support provides.

So - history counts.  Whether we agree with the decisions of the past or
not, they impact where we are today.


Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com
www.RPGWorld.com