Re: Advantages of RPG

Jon Paris wrote:

In languages where ELSEIF is not supported ELSE followed by IF will be. Not as elegant but ...

My problem with the ELSEIF is just what you state. In C-based languages you can get away with ELSE IF because of punctuation. Languages with a closing ENDIF must have a separate ELSEIF to allow the same syntax.

So, if you use ELSE IF in C, for example, you only close the last ELSE (it's tricky, but it works, and I hate tricky), whereas if you use ELSE IF in RPG you must close it with as many ENDIFs as you have IFs. So you have to use the ELSEIF opcode.

I guess we are all somewhat enslaved by our own particular mental models.

The trick is to progress beyond them, Jon. For example, I grew up with switch/case. But today I use the better tool - I use SELECT for multiple branching conditions and IF to test a single condition. SELECT signals clearly that there are multiple conditions to be processed, whereas IF signals a single branch point. That's my new mental model, made possible by RPG.

In C-based languages for program flow I have to choose between switch and elseif. Switch is horrible and elseif forces me to use the same basic syntax for two different things. I prefer RPG's flexibility.

Joe