Re: Open Access for RPG

On 7/27/2010 6:25 PM, Joe Pluta wrote:
>> (quoting an earlier append from himself) ... what
>> exactly is the difference between a KLIST and a PLIST? Not a lot. In
>> fact, I'd prefer teaching people to use data structures to pass data
>> between programs; they're much more flexible.

If your target audience is already using FREE then the whole "RPG
programmers are too dumb" argument is kind of moot. And FREE is the only
place where RPG-OA shows any serious syntactical benefit. Other than
that, a data structure is the superior solution.

I don't understand that point, Joe. Open Access isn't related to syntax at all. Whatever way an RPG programmer is comfortable coding I/O statements will work with Open Access.

Maybe there's not much difference between a KLIST and PLIST in concept. But there's a pretty big difference between a KLIST for a CHAIN and the PLIST to call an API to do the CHAIN. The information in the KLIST is only a subset of the PLIST. At a minimum, other PARMs are the record name, the buffer, the error and found information.

Why is it better for RPG programmers to learn how to set up a data structure to call a particular API or set of APIs to access some new technology? Why isn't it ok to use I/O syntax to make the call, and to use syntax like %FOUND or checking the NR indicator to check the result of the call? I don't think that using that mechanism to call the API means that the RPG programmer is lazy or dumb - it just means that they want to get on with their area of expertise which is programming for their business.