RE: Free format H, F, D and P specs

There are some extremely old folks out there (like myself) who've spent
years on SYS38, AS400, I series, and certainly do use Free format ILE as
preferred way of coding .

But then all my initial training was on PL/I on mainframes :-)

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alan Campin
Sent: 07 October 2013 22:48
To: RPG programming on the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: Free format H, F, D and P specs

Jon, they have frozen PDM. Why wouldn't they freeze RPG IV?.Other than
bug fixes what would they need to do to it? It would be dead and how
much are they paying to maintain compatibility with every release of RPG
going back to the System 38, release one?

Hell, it would probably hardly ever be used anyway. Every company I have
worked at everyone is writing RPG III in RPG IV. No one uses free format
or built in function or procedures or much of anything. I introduce it
but most people want nothing to do with it. RPG III was fine 20 years
ago. Its fine today.

I am finding recent programs written with from and to positions in data
structures? How many years have we had the ability to define data
structures using just the type and size. Almost twenty? Almost every
program I see people are still using 6 character variable names for
fields, even in files.

Bottom line is a very very small subset will use the new features. The
rest will continue to write RPG III.


On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Simple question to ask yourself Alan - how much would you pay for it?

Your requirement would all but double IBM's maintenance requirements
and thereby costs. Where do the $ come from?


On 2013-10-07, at 2:28 PM, Alan Campin <alan0307d@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The following is my opinion only.

What I don't like about the announcement is that it is in the same
language, RPG IV. I think IBM should have come out with a new
version of RPG, RPG V or maybe RPGM for RPG Modern with all the free

form syntax. No support for fixed format at all and all the old
garbage out of the language. A clean spec. A modern compiler built
for multi-treading. If

you

want to write modern go with the new language. Maintaining old
stuff. Use RPG IV or RPG III.


On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Luis Rodriguez <luisro58@xxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Jon Paris
<jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

on

Agree 100%. What I like most of the new syntax is that the /FREE

/END-FREE

combo won't be needed anymore. Nice!! Now, if I only could make

management

agree on a new IBM i :-(

On the other hand, maybe the "hype" before the real announcement
was a little too much. I was hoping something with more
"substance". Maybe

some

new BIFs or something like that...

Regards,

Luis Rodriguez
IBM Certified Systems Expert - eServer i5 iSeries
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www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com




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