RE: RPG, 10 years from now

-----Original Message-----
From: albartell [mailto:albartell@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 12:02 PM
To: 'RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: RPG, 10 years from now


>>Aaron, why does a programming language have to be concerned with the
>>devices attached to the computer?  That is what APIs are for. 

>Man Steve, I feel like you are taking my statements and running with them
>(and you are running with them in the wrong direction). I didn't say that
>the RPG program would have to know it is talking with a blackberry, I said
>it would give us the ability to talk to a blackberry. Note that this can be
>done easily right now with RPG and CGI, but it would be great to make it
>even easier with some technology specific support built into the compiler.

sorry, Aaron, I dont mean to misrepresent you. To talk to the blackberry or a 
web service you need to be able to drop some modular code into your RPG program 
without affecting other parts of the program.  For that you need namespaces and 
classes that can inherit from base classes, virtual methods, interfaces, etc.  
All basic language stuff. 

I understand people dont want this in RPG ( actually I dont understand it.  if 
you dont have to use the feature why would someone object to the language 
having it? )  That is why the .NET approach is so good. A .NET language has to 
be CLI compliant. other than that it can emphasize whatever language style 
people prefer.  An RPG.NET for example could have F specs, compatibility with 
rpg400 and built in functions.

-Steve