Re: RPG - I'm not dead yet! -- RPG400-L

As I remember that date support in DB2 and thereby in RPG came along in the
early/mid 199ties
but it did speed things down because at that time processors where slow and
not as to day
where they are mainly waiting for disk I/O.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 5:40 PM, Bob P. Roche <BRoche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

This bad language ran and still runs many companies, and has for decades,
Dates are your big issue? OK we support dates. did we in the past, no, Did
everyone else in the 60's, 70's 80'. I don't know. But saying it's not
even a language is wrong. and GOOD is a subjective concept. What's good to
me may not be good to you.

From:
john e <whattssonn@xxxxxxxxx>
To:
"RPG programming on the IBM i / System i" <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:
07/11/2011 10:25 AM
Subject:
Re: RPG - I'm not dead yet!
Sent by:
rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Well,

I'm not - again and again - going into this discussion.

I'm asking you, why is RPG a GOOD language.
First question, of course: what makes a good language?
Especially, what makes a good business language.
I'm not going to answer that, because i already had lots of discussion
about
it.

I have a problem with everybody saying that it's a good language.
Why???
Because it has RLA, chain and the like??
It's not a language feature, it's a platform feature.
Like with support for decimals, like COBOL, RPG supports decimals because
it
evolved around a business platform.
Now it's a good thing RPG has decimals, and a bad thing Java has not (not
counting the Decimal class).
But these are not language features.

I suppose then RPG was also a good business language in the 90's (or is it
a
good or even the best language since 10 years??).
How can a business language be any good if it doesn't even support dates
(and i don't mean 8-digit decimals).
This is where i have a problem.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Jerry C. Adams <midrange@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

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
IBM i Programmer/Analyst
I think that the free-enterprise system is absolutely too important to

be

left to the voluntary action of the market place. - Congressman Richard
Kelly (FL)
--
A&K Wholesale
Murfreesboro, TN
615-867-5070

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [

mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Behalf Of john e
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 9:21 AM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i / System i
Subject: Re: RPG - I'm not dead yet!

Joe,

Ok, i didn't know that. An array defined as 3u0 is the trick. Thanks!
In my - rather limited - experience with RPG-to-Java, if a pass a

character

field to Java to a byte-array it gets translated, which is not correct

as

you already stated. Apparently, the compiler "sees" it's a normal field
(and
not a 3u0 field) and thus handles it as text.

Charles,
Ok, i didn't know that either, although, now you stated it, i knew or

did

know (forgotten/biased?) that the JVM was implemented below SLIC, not

above

which would be indeed very inefficient.

Maybe i'm a bit too harsh on OS/400, it is indeed - these days - a very
versatile platform.
Anyway, although i'm quite critical, i AM a fan of OS/400, the platform.
I'm just not a fan of RPG, and think it is the achillesheel of OS/400
development.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Joe Pluta
<joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

On 7/11/2011 8:14 AM, john e wrote:

And... i know it will never, ever, be fixed, because nobody will

complain.

Maybe you, me, a couple others on this thread, but the "audience"is

just

tooo very small for IBM.
We just have to be thankful that there is something like RPG/Java
integration.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 3:10 PM, john e<whattssonn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Joe,

I have one problem with RPG and Java integration however, a bit

off-topic,

but anyway. An alphanumeric field in RPG seems to be always

translated

to a

byte-array, instead of a String. Then, RPG to Java support always

assumes

the field contains text, and thus always translates the contents to

UTF-16.

This is not correct. When just want to pass a field with bytes i

can't

do

that, because it gets translated. The other way around would be

better,

never translate it automatically, and when it contains text i can

(manually

by invoking a routine) translate ebcdic to utf-16 and pass that.

This

is

one

example of integration, which is ok, but still causing headaches

because

of

the "different" (i.e. ecbdic etc) nature of it. This always

translating

alpha fields to byte-arrays (not Strings but byte-arrays) is not

correct. It

seems like it wasn't well thought out.

This simply isn't true. If you want to pass untranslated data, pass

it

as an array of 3u0. I do it all the time and it works perfectly. But
regardless, a character field is most definitely NOT a string! It is

an

array of character data. You pass the data to Java, and then create a
string from those bytes, and that's Java's job. You can also do it in
your RPG program by calling the appropriate String method.

Personally, I think the integration of String and RPG CCSID is

actually

very good.

Developing on the AS/400 and integrating with the rest of the world

always

seems problematic. With or without first-class support for JNI

(which

RPG

has and is rather unique but.... doesn't work without hassles,

again!)

And from my standpoint, the IBM i is the most open platform available
and talks to just about everybody. You can access it via web service

or

ODBC or even direct calls to ILE through the Java toolbox. Few
platforms provide anything like the connectivity of the i.

Joe
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