Re: Future of RPG was: Open Access for RPG

On 29/07/2010, at 4:38 AM, hr@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

calling a subprocedure (why is it named "subprocedure"

Historical reasons.

First, "function" and "procedure" are effectively synonymous--some people make the distinction that a function returns a value whereas a procedure doesn't but in RPG that point is fairly moot.

Second, when RPG IV was first released it supported procedures but had a restriction of one procedure per module--somewhat like mini-mainline programs, could not return a value, and could only be called via CALLB. In VRM320 and VRM360 RPG IV got the ability to have procedures return a value, to have procedures callable from expressions, and prototyping. It also got the ability to have more than one procedure in a single module. At this point the RPG documentation adopted the term "sub-procedure" to distinguish between the new procedures support (sub-procedures) and the old procedure support). I think that was a bit stupid and they should simply have used the term procedure to describe both kinds because there is really no difference between them. Furthermore once RPG IV gave us proper procedure support there was no need to ever write the old kind and thus limited need to describe or discuss differences.

Whenever I teach RPG IV I point this out and even though the presentation materials use the word "sub-procedure" I always use "procedure" and teach my students to do the same.


Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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