RE: RPG easier/harder to use than other languages?

Moderation is not something I've come to expect for OO devotees. I expect multiple levels of inheritance, with a class for every different product (likely in the triple digits).

Of course, that's just my little corner of the world...




-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Paris [mailto:jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2017 2:32 PM
To: Rpg400 Rpg400-L <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: RPG easier/harder to use than other languages?

I think we are in in agreement on this Richard.

It has always seemed to me that OO was a terrific fir for something like graphical programming (browser or desktop) where inheritance of things like buttons, entry fields, etc. has real advantages. But all too often the purists rammed the paradigm down our throats as the solution for everything. In theory using OO principals also works OK with (say) types of bank account. In practice it only seems to work if the IT group can constrain the kind of non-sensicle "customizations" that are demanded by the marketing folks. All too often there are so many exceptions that it would have been easier and more maintainable to just write a few custom pieces and build the different account types from those rather than attempting to inherit the behaviours.

Java is often referred to as the "new COBOL" in this sense as it has become every bit as hard to maintain and update business apps as it was before. In the Windows/Browser/etc. world the order of the day seems to be more towards simply rewriting and to hell with backward compatibility.


Jon Paris

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www.SystemiDeveloper.com