Re: RPG

I agree with John Y on the semicolons. Although I don't know all of the languages Vernon mentioned, in my experience, RPG is the first language I have seen that requires a semicolon at the end of the IF and ELSE lines.

-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Vernon Hamberg
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2016 4:57 PM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries) <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: RPG

Crazy quirks? (See John's statement below) Semicolons?

Let's see, languages like C, Pascal, Algol, Ada, PL/I, et al, used semicolons to indicate the end of a line - and Javascript today can use them although optional, last I looked.

Not so crazy anytime, methinks!

Vern

On 7/19/2016 2:13 PM, Jon Paris wrote:

Having taught RPG to a _lot_ of non-RPGers John I’ll just say that in my opinion you are wrong.

Also I never said anything about free-format - although I think it is important.

There are a number of enhancements over the years that I have found to be very important to folks learning RPG in part because they are the norm in other languages. e.g Multi-dimensional arrays, nested data structures, etc. etc.

There have also been changes in subprocedures - in particular the removal of the requirement to always have prototypes, something that really bugs and confuses newbies because it made no sense for local subprocs.

Brad does good work and treats his customers well - I just wish that Rochester Connection would do more to update the materials they sell.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Jul 19, 2016, at 1:24 PM, John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

=snip=

[1] If you're coming to RPG from other languages, you may well find
free format *trickier* to learn than fixed, because free format
teases you with how similar it is in some ways, but then has crazy
quirks like semicolons required after the IF and ELSE statements. I
am still continually forgetting them.

John Y.

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