Re: RPG V?

I haven't read it all yet, but for declaring variables I would prefer more
like

char var1 len(3)
varchar var2
dec var3 len(3,2)

Bring it up to more of the likes of C#, Java, and PHP. This is how all the
kids are doing it, and lets face it, ya'll are getting close to spending
your winters in AZ, TX or FL. The language will have to morph from what it
is to something that at least looks more like "modern" languages.

Quick story, my cousin had a school project where you had to pick 3 or 4
languages and write a quick string manipulation program. One of his
classmates choose RPG (with no previous training mind you). The guy gave up
because he found it too complicated to display his output. The most common
laguages? PHP, RUBY, Perl, and C#. There where a several others of which I
can't remember. This is a failing of RPG going forward, the new programmers
can't make sense of DDS screens and how the language interacts with
everything, at least without some form of training.

The next iteration of RPG should make this simpler to figure out so the
young punk just out of school can figure out the basics of RPG and fix what
needs fixing.

--
Mike Wills
http://mikewills.info
P: (507) 933-0880 | Skype: koldark


On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Kurt Anderson
<kurt.anderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

Thanks for the article link, Hans.

I'm all in for a fully free format RPG. I really don't get what you're
talking about with a window of opportunity. I wish WDSC would color code
%BIFs. I've been wishing it for, oh, 5 years or more. If they suddenly did
it, I wouldn't say, "Sorry, you missed your opportunity." Now, if you
simply don't care about what they're doing, then that's a whole nother
story.

From the article:

"...no RPG IV programmer today would admit that they enjoy typing in the
COLON separator."
Honestly, I never minded. I hit the shift key all the time for uppercasing
without a thought. Sure, I don't type a colon and think, "Man, my day was
pretty crappy, but now that I typed a colon, I think it's looking brighter."
I'm splitting hairs. I do agree a comma is probably better, I just think
his comment was a bit over the top.

A comment about his speculation... I think that the conversion should be
done without the DCL opcode. I think it's excessive and it doesn't allow
for visual differentiation. All I see are a bunch of DCL statements. For
comparison:

Bob's Speculation:
dcl File(myFile)
dcl var(myVar) Len(5)
dcl const(myConstant) Value('test')

My Preference:
File myFile
var myVar Len(5)
Const myConstant Value('test')

Eliminates the need for the DCL and also no longer needs parens around the
name of the value (that's 5 keystrokes not including two shift hits)

I do like his idea of the indenting DS. However, instead of a DCL DS(mYDS)
I think a simple DS; or DS myDS; would be sufficient to start the DS (since
you don't need to name the DS). I do like the EndDS; idea.

So while my email has been a bit picky, I actually really enjoyed his
article and speculation. I am excited to see a true free-format RPG
language.

-Kurt

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Hans Boldt
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2010 8:31 AM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RPG V?

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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