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  1.  Home
  2. RPG400-L
  3. September 2010

Re: Convert from free to fixed

I've seen programms running with MR indicator, CAB Operations, internal described records, multi format files living for years in an ancient world, programmed in the style of the roary sixties. You must be very carefull to hold the value of your software and one important point is maintainebility. About 10 years ago I've had the opportunity for a COBOL mainframe project, because they didn't find enough people to maintain 30 years old COBOL programms.
The stuff of a software project has to be educated continousely and the programming style must evolve to be not too far behind the actaul style of coding and a look to the world outside of the RPG ghetto might show the direction! I didn't recommend to throw programms away, or to rewrite for beautyness, but, yes, I would not implement additional subroutines to this software and more than this. With every change or error correction I would refactor one part after the other and enhance especally modularisation.

D*B


--------------------------------------------------
From: "Tom Huff" <tehuff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 6:28 PM
To: "'RPG programming on the IBM i / System i'" <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Convert from free to fixed

So,
If you have a program that has lots of subroutines already, and you have to
modify this program, Do you use procedures or subroutines ? Keep in mind the
base software package has about 20,000 programs with 2 million lines of code
and all of them have subroutines and no procedures.
To keep the integrity of the system, I think you should use subroutines.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of dieter.bender@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 11:19 AM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i / System i
Subject: Re: Convert from free to fixed

... interesting, you are a clairvoyant, seeing what other persons are
thinking...

IMHO RPG has sometimes diffrent features, doing similar things and good
style is not to use all, what's available, but the most powerful lfeature of

each category. For instance error handling: you have:
- error indicators in fixed format
- e extenders in free format
- ile condition handlers
- *pssr
- monitor groups
-... maybe I'm overlooking something, I didn't see in > 20 years RPG
comparing this alternatives, monitor is the most powerfull of all and
contains all possibilities the other have and some valuable too (arbitrary
blocks, grouping of conditions), so I clearly recommend to use this and only

this!!!

Another example:
in RPG you have Subroutines and Procedures a procedure could do all, a
subroutine does and has valuable additional features as local variables and
parameters and prototypes for the compiler to check if your call could have
a chance to succeed - so I clearly recommend to use procedures and forget
subroutines (for all your newly written stuff). BTW: Prototypes are another
example for doing things not consequently by the developers of RPG. There
are languages out there only needing PIs and no PRs.

D*B

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Scott Klement" <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:30 PM
To: "RPG programming on the IBM i / System i" <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Convert from free to fixed

Hi Vern,

Nothing wrong with it - some think tried and true techniques should
never be used, just because they aren't their hottest new thing.

Frankly, that's not a common problem in the RPG community.

A much more common problem is to use old, clumsy, outdated techniques
just because folks are used to them. RPG programmers almost always hang
on to outdated techniques long after better ones arrive, just because
"we've always done it that way."

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