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rpg400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

   1. RE: free form RPG reference (Jonathan Mason)

How could this become a "management approval" item? How is it different
from using an API that
became available for V5R1 or a new IBM command? Especially, how is it
different from using a new
%bif or any other feature of a language?

It's very different because it has an impact on the whole RPG programming
department.  Use of a new %BIF or command can have an impact - I've been in
a number of sites where new %BIFs weren't allowed because of variations in
operating system levels.

Jonathan:

As I said, it is indeed a significant difference in magnitude, and maybe that's the only point. It'd still seem to need someone who decides whether an item is "big enough" to pass upwards for decision.

And certainly in the case of OS level differences for %bifs, etc., it shouldn't be much a 'management' decision as a simple fact of knowing how to program for a platform -- you don't write programs that can't run on the intended platform if you want to stay employed. No?


The change to free format RPG requires some degree of a learning curve which
by its nature will reduce the programming efficiency of the programmer
involved and there is also the problem of having to maintain something you
may not be familiar with.  A lot of places will stick with fixed format RPG
purely because that's what their programmers know and is also what their
packaged software is written in.

Yes, there is a learning curve. What... a couple hours? Mostly the direct learning curve is conquered in the first ten minutes. Then, as individual elements are chosen and used, each one might take ten minutes to look up in the Reference. Many will be understood and used quickly; some will take experimentation. Once a programmer has written his/her own line of code, that line becomes the future copy/paste guide and future lookups decrease.

In addition, there are a couple particular elements that can add minor, temporary snags. The relationship between the SQL pre-compiler and free-form is an example. Given the total number of developers, though, I wonder how many adopters of embedded SQL are also restricted from free-form. But again, once an initial example is available, the next ones are dramatically easier especially if self-written.

As for maintenance, I pretty sure that jumping into maintenance of free-form is easier than starting in writing from scratch; so maybe 'learning curve' isn't as important there. And I'm not at all sure that maintenance of a free-form program by an inexperienced developer is slower than maintenance of an equivalent fixed-form program, for even fixed-form die-hards. (That's pure speculation. I really don't know and I'd be interested in hearing about experiences.)


I've worked at a number of sites in the UK and at one of them, a major
automotive company, a contractor had to ask for permission to code a program
in RPG IV simply to get around a field/record size limit.  That was 5-6
years ago and I doubt if there programming standards have changed much since
then.

BT, DT. Reality is understood. I'm just curious on how it got that way. I'd think there is some kind of disconnect between management and staff that doesn't make total sense.

Tom Liotta


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