Re: RPG hard to learn?

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 10:32 AM, <dlclark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"RPG400-L" <rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 06/28/2017 05:51:05
PM:

if you work with jQuery the code is intuitive.

The point is that jQuery is written in JavaScript and --somebody--
had to write it. A similar library of functions (service procedures)could
be pre-written in RPG/ILE and supplied as a reusable library of procedures
-- just as jQuery is pre-written and supplied.

It doesn't make sense to hold that against JavaScript. jQuery is
freely and widely available. It's an established part of the
JavaScript ecosystem. The RPG ecosystem is, by comparison, a desert.
Sure, someone could write a service program for X. Then why haven't
they? Why don't they? Until someone does, how will you achieve X in
RPG? If you need to achieve it now, then *you* will have to write it
yourself.

A separate issue is: Let's say neither RPG nor JavaScript have a
preexisting library to handle X. So either way, you have to write it
yourself. Which language will it be easier to write X in? In plenty of
cases, if RPG and JavaScript are the only two choices, it's going to
be JavaScript. There will also be some values of X for which RPG is
easier. The functionality of jQuery is something that is hard for me
to imagine being easier in RPG. Or even close, honestly. I think a
good test would be to ask Scott Klement, if he were tasked with
implementing jQuery today, and he could choose RPG or JavaScript,
which would he choose?

Please understand, I am not a JavaScript fan (I rather dislike it,
actually), and I don't mean to bash RPG.

The RPG version would be a lot more code.

In the eye of the beholder.

There gets to be a point where if you really want to insist that it's
"just subjective", then you have to allow for the fact that EVERY
language is easy. Because it literally is true. Every language is
easy. For someone. Take your arguments about RPG IV to someone who is
steeped in RPG II (and nothing else). When you get to the point where
you say "it would be so much harder to do this in RPG II" that's when
they will go "in the eye of the beholder".

John Y.