Welcome!
Check out this tutorial by IBM RPG compiler team member Barbara Morris
"Coding in Free-Form RPG IV - a beginner's tutorial"
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/We13116a562db_467e_bcd4_882013aec57a/page/Coding%20in%20Free-Form%20RPG%20IV%20-%20a%20beginner%27s%20tutorial
You might also be interested in Liam Allan, another fresh yound developer
who was new to the IBM i and RPG.
https://www.itjungle.com/2016/08/08/tfh080816-story03/
He's got a tutorial here:
https://github.com/WorksOfBarry/rpg-intro
Additionally
Wikipedia has a nice intro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG
The IBM manuals you want are online, but make sure you're looking at RPG IV
aka ILE RPG. RPG/400 is RPG III and has been outdated since 1994.
Here's where to start
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_72/rzahg/rzahgrpgcode.htm
Also be sure to read the ILE concepts manual
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_72/ilec/ilecmain.htm
Think of ILE (Integrated Language Environment) as an equivalent to
Microsoft's .NET CLE.
Another term to know is "Service Programs (*SRVPGM)" think of them as a DLL.
The best and worst thing about RPG in general is that IBM is so committed
to forward compatibility. You could conceivably have a brand new POWER 8
server running IBM i v7.3 (released last year) running RPG II, RPG III and
RPG IV programs! Though at this point RPG II is a stretch. You'll also find
so called RPG IV programs that are really RPG III programs run through the
Convert RPG Source (CVTRPGSRC) command so that the RPG IV compiler will
compile them. Personally I consider these RPG III. If they happen to make
use of a few RPG IV features, then I'd consider them RPG III+.
To me, a true RPG IV program doesn't use the obsolete yet still allowed
stuff left over from RPG III. A good way to ensure this is to use "free
format" instead of the original "fix format". However, there's still an
issue...monolithic programs. You can write a monolithic 32,000 line RPG IV
program with all variables global just like you can with RPG III.
This is where ILE comes in. An ILE RPG program or *SRVPGM uses procedures
with local variables. Procedures are contained in modules and can be
public, protected, or private to the module. Modules can have protected
global variables accessible only to procedures in the module. It's not OO,
but you get some of the benefits without the all the complexity.
You'll find many who use RPG IV and ILE RPG interchangeably; But to me
there's a difference. RPG IV is the just the syntax; ILE is more about the
structure of your application.
In the same vein, you'll find two different editors for RPG. The obsolete
green screen host based source utility (SEU) and the PC based GUI Rational
Developer for i (RDi) that's built on Eclipse.
http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/dev-ibm-i
Lastly, as far as training:
-
http://www.bmeyers.net/elearning
-
http://www.partner400.com/
-
http://www.mantatech.com/manta/subject.htm
-
http://www.systemideveloper.com/conferences.html
-
http://common.org/
There's plenty more, those are some of the big ones off the top of my head.
Charles
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:35 PM, Brent Goben <goben.brent@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My name is Brent and I was recently hired by a wholesale distribution
company as a computer programmer. I am a recently graduated software
development student and RPG was not a language covered in my curriculum.
I have been searching and searching for any training materials or tutorials
in RPG and have found little to no information available. I purchased Jim
Buck's textbook *Programming in RPG IV, Fourth Edition*. This book is
helpful to a point. But, I feel without a classroom structure as a
companion, I am very limited in what learning I can accomplish.
Having said all of that, do you know of anywhere I can learn RPG IV in an
RDi environment?
If this is not the place for this type of question, I apologize. I'm kind
of running out of enthusiasm for RPG...
Thanks,
Brent
--
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