RE: RPG III

Time and resources, which translates to money.

The core of our system was written by a vendor about 12 - 15 years ago
in RPGIII I think.  To make it worse everything is RPT with numerous
copy books.  We are so far behind the current version and so heavily
customized that the vendor no longer provides support.  We have managed
to update a few peripheral processes but have not been allowed to update
the core programs.  The reason I usually get is that it will take too
long to test the new program and we don't have enough people in the QA
and business departments with the time required for testing.

I understand the argument but still think it's in the company's best
interest to update the system.  

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jerry Adams
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 6:57 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: RPG III

That's what I especially like about being a one-man shop:
There was absolutely no argument, discussion, politics, or
whatever about ditching the RPG III programs (converting to
IV) and writing all new stuff in IV.  The excuses that I hear
for not programming in IV are as lame as excuses get.


I "attended" a webcast yesterday by Susan Gantner on /free
format.  One of Susan's arguments for using /free was that it
looks more like "modern" languages like Java and C, which the
few kids coming out of college IT courses are used to. 
Besides not being able to code /free III code, a similar
argument applies here: Managers are holding back
(deliberately?) their programming staff and, just as bad,
harming their companies because they can't/don't take
advantage of better methods and available technology.


But I try to keep an open mind.  I'd certainly be willing to
hear of any reasonable excuse for sticking with III.  And
"It's company policy or mandate" doesn't cut it.


      * Jerry C. Adams
*IBM System i5/iSeries Programmer/Analyst B&W Wholesale
Distributors, Inc.* * voice
      615.995.7024
fax
      615.995.1201
email
      jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



Joep Beckeringh wrote:

Douglas,

 > ... that I am not permitted
 > to convert to ILE.

There's your problem. So tell the one responsible: "Give me

a day and

I'll write my own conversion routine in RPG (and make sure

you test it

carefully, because I never wrote such a routine before). Or give me
ten minutes; five to convert to RPG IV and another five to use the
well tested functions %INT en %TRIM to convert it."

Joep Beckeringh



Douglas Palme wrote:
 

I am in the process of modifying an RPG III program that I am not
permitted to convert to ILE.



One of the fields is a 10 character field that only

contains numeric

numbers and will never have more than seven digits..I know I could
change the field length to 7 but I was told no to that as

well as it

might blow up other programs.



Here is the delimna, I need to move the value to a 7 digit

numeric. 

It is possible that it can have anywhere from 1 to seven digits.



Example:



'116769    ' - Charcter value



I have a new field defined as 7,0



When I do a move on it it shows up as 1167690 and a movel

gives me 7690000.

Suggestions? Hints?  Converting it is not an option.



Douglas

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