Re: What would you do without RPG?

I may have misdirected the discussion by suggesting a scenario where IBM
gets the blame for abandoning RPG (which would make me angry too). I would
rather suggest that IBM should be given credit for creating a runtime
environment that provides the basis for a language like RPG. As far as
language syntax is concerned, it doesn't make much difference to me whether
database operations are expressed as op codes, or as expressions which
invoke procedures. It's more important that the DBMS efficiently supports
RLA. One could cite dozens, or perhaps even hundreds of features - not just
RLA.

Somebody might port the RPG syntax to the Windows platform, for example.
But it's not likely that they could duplicate the performance of ILE RLA
under a Windows DBMS. To me, there is greater value in the native virtual
machine and the native database than a particular language syntax. When
someone asks about an RPG complier for another platform, do they really
understand how difficult it would be to duplicate the native IBM i runtime
environment on say Windows or Linux?

People seem to focus on commodity platforms rather than the unique value
inherent in a runtime environment like the native IBM i virtual machine. If
RPG were not part of the package, individuals and community would probably
come up with procedural frameworks which approximate the high-level
behavior of RPG; just using a slightly different syntax.

Contrast that with the idea of porting RPG to commodity platforms, without
having the IBM i native virtual machine support hidden underneath. It does
not make much sense to me to port a language like RPG to another platform.
To me, it makes more sense to migrate applications from commodity platforms
to IBM i on Power.

Nathan