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  2. RPG400-L
  3. December 2006

Re: Cycle programs and control level breaks(to make you feel old)

Cycle programs and control level breaks(to make you feel old)
rpg400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


   3. Re: Cycle programs and control level breaks(to make you feel
      old) (Michael_Schutte)

I may be young but I have seen these cycle programs.  Once had to maintain
one and I thought it was h3ll.  Trying to follow the control level breaks
was enough to take up my day.  :-)  But there have been times when I
thought it would be neat to try and write a report using the input primary,
I've yet to do it though.
Bear in mind that you have seen _some_ cycle programs. What you've seen doesn't cover a significant fraction of them. They aren't necessarily poorly constructed.
But also keep in mind the limitations that went along with them at the time. 

1. There were no D-specs. (I could repeat that for emphasis.)
2. Column-width limits with true fixed-format. This includes small variable-name length limits. 
3. All upper-case everything except literal constants and comments.
4. Not even an IF op-code!
5. The necessity for well thought out AND implemented indicator usage. (And they _were_ indicators, not even [*IN] indicators.) 
6. ... well, there are a bunch of things... Anybody want to add?
The point is that a huge amount of ugliness came not from The Cycle, but from so many other elements that have long since been left behind. Even when RPG III brought some cycle independence originally, programs would still look very ugly by RPG IV current standards.
Make sure you judge the difficulty of those programs by what caused the difficulties, not simply because they used the cycle. 

Tom Liotta

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