RE: RPG Futures (was free form RPG reference)

This might be out of context but does anybody know if RPG is ever going

to be a fully free-form language like C, Java and other languages?

It is one of a number of enhancements being considered.  George Farr (RPG
development manager) has mentioned it publicly several times.  Frankly I
don't think we'll see it in RPG IV.  More likely in some follow-on that
doesn't (for example) have to worry about O-specs which would be truly nasty
to implement in free-form I suspect.

One of the things that gives me a chuckle is that the thing most people want
is D-specs in free-form.  Yet in every language in which I have worked the
first thing you're taught is to line up your data declarations in columns!
Most of the former Java programmers I've met who switch to RPG have no real
problem with columns for the Ds.

I can live with fixed form Ds - I _can't_ live with the artificial
restrictions I face in array size, DS size, etc.  To me that is a much
bigger problem in these days of XML parsing etc.

Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com