Re: Service programs, procedures, not sure what to do

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:06 AM,
<j.beckeringh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My code was sort of an equivalent of how you would do it in Java:

MailData maildata = new MailData();
maildata.setValue('fromAddress':'jclarkson@xxxxxxxxxxx');
(or maildata.setFromAddress('jclarkson@xxxxxxxxxxx');)
maildata.send();

The reason I do it that way is that in my scenario the caller owns the
memory. In your scenario the service program owns the memory. In practice
it probably won't make much of a difference, but I think the caller should
be the owner of the memory.

Well, of course RPG's support for class-based object-oriented
programming is weak. I personally think treating the service program
as an object (more or less like Brad suggests) is closer to the Java
model, since the data and the methods (procedures) belong with the
object, not the caller.

That being said, you bring up a good point:

And in my scenario it would be possible to
have more than one MailData 'object', in your scenario it is a singleton.

I have to admit, I don't have much experience or practice with service
programs, but if I understand correctly, it would indeed look like a
singleton to its caller. However, can multiple callers each have
their own "instance" of the service program's global data? If so,
then you can still (with further scaffolding; maybe another service
program to wrap the MailData service program?) get your multiple
MailData instances.

It's probably all moot, though. I would think the normal use case is
just to create one e-mail, send it, then create another e-mail, and
send that, etc. I think you tend not to need multiple concurrent
instances.

John Y.