Re: RPG V?

As one who has had the misfortune to not any longer find work in the RPG
world, I think the rationale would be to try to match the situation with
other languages. I can easily for example, find code I need on thousands of
forums and web sites ( I code now in ASP.net database SQL Server and
Oracle). Of course, we have this list and some others do to the same, but
it's not the same I can tell you.
So maybe they are trying to popularize the language but I agree that it's
too litlle, too late kind of situation.
But they perhaps have targeted some companies where the i would be more cost
effective.

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Hans Boldt <hans@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Bob Cozzi wrote an article on what a fully free-form RPG V language
might look like, based on rumors that IBM is working on such a thing. I
have my opinions on the subject, and I'd be curious to know what others
here might think.

(See http://systeminetwork.com/article/what-rpg-v-might-look)

What do I think? As the principle developer behind free-form calcs, you
might think I'd be happy to see a fully free-form language. But I'm
finding it hard to get excited about the concept. I think IBM missed
it's window of opportunity years ago. There was a lot of excitement
surrounding the release of free-form calcs. IBM should have capitalized
on that buzz immediately, and followed up with additional free-form
specs in the immediately subsequent releases.

But, at that time, the concensus was that there weren't really any
significant advantages to making other specs fully free-form, and that
other enhancements took priority. That's probably still true today. I
think RPG still needs some work in certain areas, such as namespace
support, an IBM-supplied procedure library, and externally described
procedures.

What do you think? Is there a need for RPG V? If IBM is indeed serious
about an RPG V, what might the rationale be?

Cheers! Hans
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