Re: /Copy books - yes or no?

[Vernon Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There was a technique used before service programs arrived - and even 
afterwards, perhaps - to use a pair of /copy members, the first as a 
header, the 2nd as executable code at the end of a source member.

I do not say it is a desirable way to work, but you may run across this 
usage - it DOES make it possible to have maintainable utility code in 
one place, so you are not using copy/paste techniques, which are prone 
to all kinds of error of forgetting where it all is.

Now one downside - programs will all be larger than they need to be, if 
you have a service program with all those utility functions.

Once in place, such practices take time to bring forward to using more 
modern methods - time we don't always have.

All I've said lines up, I hope, with what John and the others have 
offered, though.

HTH
Vern

On 3/11/2015 8:42 PM, John Yeung wrote:
> I agree with the prevailing responses you've already received.
>
> A small thing I'd like to add regarding C and C++: Their include files
> are typically called "header files" or simply "headers". This makes it
> very clear that they're meant for prototypes and other setup, not
> arbitrary code.
>
> I am going to guess that there is a decent-sized minority of RPG
> programmers who "grew up" with pre-ILE versions of RPG. I'm not going
> to say that these are categorically bad programmers. I think some
> percentage of them are "modularity minded", making extensive use of
> subroutines and using manageable, reusable *PLIST-called OPM programs.
> Granted, not as nice as subprocedures and service programs, but still
> a far cry from what I would call "monolithic".
>
> Now, the point of that verbose preamble is this: I think THOSE
> programmers are the ones who are most opposed to copy blocks. Because
> really, what are you going to do with copy blocks in OPM? They don't
> really gain you very much in OPM, and they still have all the
> disadvantages.
>
> Full disclosure: I consider myself a modularity-minded OPM RPG
> programmer, and our codebase where I work is almost exclusively
> "modularly OPM RPG IV". C was my primary programming language
> throughout high school and college; I never heard of RPG or AS/400
> until my first job after graduating.
>
> John Y.