Re: RPG - I'm not dead yet!

Not only has RPG grown during its lifespan, e.g. ILE support, from fixed
format
to free, %bif-support, xml-into etc. it has also grown with a large number
of libraries
such as CGIDEV2, LIBFTP, LIBHTTP and many others around it and there is
a lot of development platforms (IDE's) out there as well.

John mention that IBM I has a build in VM on top of SLIC and that is bad,
but
think again, what does the VM in VM-ware stand for, how do you create
LPAR's
without VM's technology?

And by the way after Window 3.1, that caused a lot of problems because a
single programmer could take complete control, Microsoft started to develop
Windows NT that in the start was know as OS/2 V3 - yes it was based on
IBM tech.

And while writing this - John came in and i need to comment - are you crazy
-
both DB2 and RPG supports dates in any format because a datefield is a
special field that contains a binary number of the relative date - its just
before I
write like I often sees in the Sencha forum "read the f******* manual"!

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 5:29 PM, john e <whattssonn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ok.....

The reason why, IMHO, RPG is a "fatal" flaw is because most RPG
programmers
are "raised" with a "language" that doesn't support all kind of trivial
things, like normal dates, like "free format", local variables, long
variable names (we have indicators), only columnar format, only
subroutines
and no any other way of abstraction, JUST subroutines (yes thanks to
OS/400
we can call other programs as modules but again this is not a language
feature), etc etc.

This is were most RPG programmers are at.
Only 1% use ILE RPGIV (which is feature wise comparable to C from the 60's
but anyway a lot better than before).
Why is it that only 1% use "modern" RPG?

Because RPG exists since 1950 and only the last 10 years it evolved,
somewhat.
I am exagerating, but only a little bit, unfortunately.

Most RPG'ers don't have any knowledge of good software development
practices, like abstraction, etc.
Learning a (natural) language shapes your mind.
If you learn a language like RPGII, or III, and this is your only language
and only knowlegde then something like "local variables" sound strange and
not useful, only making things complicated. Try convincing somebody with
only "classic" RPG experience the advantages of local variables. It's just
completely alien.





On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wrote:

Thanks, Jerry. That's a pretty cogent synopsis of the situation with a
very low geek factor.

And yes, C was a godsend for me. While I was learning RPG, I also
learned assembly language and then C, and understanding the basic C
syntax has served as a solid foundation for many of the other languages
I've learned over the years, including C++, Java and JavaScript.

Joe

I'm not nearly as well versed in these things as you and Joe, but why

would

one consider RPG (and here I'm assuming ILE RPG) to be an Achilles'

Heel?

An Achilles' Heel is a weak point (usually a fatal one). Just because

it's

tied so closely to the system (using, I think, the system's data

management

routines among other things) shouldn't be cause for alarm. As Joe and

JHHL,

among others, have pointed out it always helps to be multilingual.

Makes

me

wish I hadn't given up on C those many years ago.

RPG is not a fatal flaw - in my opinion - as long as Toronto keeps

growing

it. Which they seem intent upon doing.

Jerry C. Adams

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