Re: RpgMap: a versatile key/value store for ile rpg

Of course I will eventually learn the APIs John - but in comparing this with other RPG oriented APIs I think it is going to be a lot harder than it need have been. Take Scott's wrappers for YAJL for example:

yajl_object_find, yajl_get_string, yajl_beginObj, yajl_beginArray, etc. etc.

Aaron's RPGMail - similar notions.

Someone encountering code using those who have a reasonable idea of what was going on - when I looked the function list for RpgMap I _knew_ what I was looking at and still couldn't make head or tail out o some of the names.

RPG used to have to be terse - that's what we lived with for years. But we don't have to now and it just seems too retro to go back to the bad old days when there was no need. Most of us doing modern RPG are using editors like RDi that can provide assistance for the typing so having a 16 character name rather than 8 is not exactly a punishment when it makes it more obvious from the outset what the function is about.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Jul 24, 2017, at 7:02 PM, John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 1:03 PM, Mark Murphy/STAR BASE Consulting Inc.
<mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yet, even for those who know RPG, SLL is mostly meaningless, the RPG keyword is SETLL. Similarly RDN is equally meaningless as READ or READE is the RPG equivalent.

As I said, I don't think I would have made all the same choices as the
author did. However, I think almost everyone who is responding is not
giving it a fair shake.

I'm sure we all like to believe we are not fearful of new things, or
predisposed to dislike the unfamiliar. But I think most of us are
anyway. I know I am.

If we look at this with an open mind for a second: Just think: How
long will it take you to learn that SLL means "set lower limit"? No,
really think about this. I don't consider myself a stunningly good
programmer or anything, but it literally took me just a few seconds to
learn this. I don't think I'm going to forget this one, and I
certainly am not going to confuse it with some other function when I
see it.

Other names in the package could well take longer to stick or be less
intuitive. But SLL was not a great first example of something to
complain about. It's a knee-jerk reaction, not a thoughtful one.

The other issue I have with this library is that even though the concepts of lists and trees are well established the vocabulary in this library is brand new, and this could put off guys with a different background. What would be wrong with rm_insert(), rm_get() and rm_remove()?

Well, first of all, rm_get() *is* one of the function names.

And the vocabulary you're proposing *is* there, just spelled shorter,
as rm_ins() and rm_rmv().

Let's see, how long will it take to learn that INS means "insert" and
RMV means "remove"? Cryptic? These three fundamental functions were
purposely kept at three letters each. I wonder if any of us has ever
been exposed to an environment that has pervasive three-letter
mnemonic abbreviations for words within commands. Hmm... I wonder....

John Y.
--
This is the RPG programming on the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries) (RPG400-L) mailing list
To post a message email: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/rpg400-l
or email: RPG400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related questions.

Help support midrange.com by shopping at amazon.com with our affiliate link: http://amzn.to/2dEadiD