On 23/06/2008, at 11:53 PM, David FOXWELL wrote:
I've read several times lately in articles that, in the author's
opinion, RPG is the best language for business logic.
For a programmer who has very little knowledge of the world outside
RPG and CL ( like me for instance ) that is difficult to question.
Could those of you who KNOW RPG is best explain very simply, why?
Strictly speaking RPG is not the "best" because that's a subjective
appellation. In order to decide "best" you first have to know what is
being compared (i.e., RPG vs. ???).
RPG is no better or worse than COBOL (another business language).
Both support fixed-decimal data types, both support date, time, and
timestamp data types (and include intrinsic or built-in functions
for operating on them), both support sequential and keyed access to
files. Both have good structured coding support.
RPG is more terse (or perhaps you prefer concise) than COBOL--whether
that is an advantage or not is purely subjective. COBOL gives direct
access to record buffers so can show a performance improvement in I/O
intensive applications (although RPG has similar support if you read
into a data structure). RPG's procedure support is better than
COBOL's nested program idea. COBOL has a wider range of mathematical
functions *IN* the language than RPG. COBOL is portable while
(modern) RPG is not. However, for business programming they are both
equally good.
If you were coding on a non-IBM-midrange platform RPG wouldn't even
enter the discussion. While there are business advantages to running
your business on an IBM-Midrange system the existence of RPG on that
platform is hardly sufficient reason to make the choice.
When compared to C, C++, and Java then RPG has a number of advantages
for business programming primarily being fixed-decimal support, date
support, and fixed-length variable support (less of an issue with
Java but a primary source of problems in C). However, since COBOL
also has these features it is an equally valid alternative for
business programming.
For systems-level programming C is fine.
For OO I still reckon you can't beat Smalltalk.
For scripting I prefer Rexx.
My "best" language is PL/1. It has most of the features of RPG and
COBOL plus the low-level stuff that C is good at. Pity the IBM-
midrange variant wasn't popular.
So, no such thing as "best" except within a constrained context.
Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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