Re: Anybody have an RPGIII program they could send me?

On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 9:42 AM, Kevin <kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

David - RPGIII is RPGIII isn't it - Charles wanted something with nested
IF's in it - which the code certainly has.

It's only being used for a presentation - he didn't say he wanted efficient
well crafted, human written code. A good portion of BPCS was written with
this, so ticks the real life box as well - at least all the code looks the
same and would convert the same.

Charles wasn't very explicit about the agenda for his presentation.
The closest he came was to say that he will show that automated
conversion tools can get you to RPG IV, but not to ILE RPG.

So, my guess is that he wants to specifically promote ILE features and
practices, in which case it probably is a more powerful argument to
start with as-well-crafted-as-possible RPG III code. Starting with
garbage and converting it to RPG-IV-syntax garbage dilutes the
message, because there is already a lot of improvement to be had (and
a lot of manual effort to be spent) in that space between "crappy
non-ILE code" and "much less crappy non-ILE code". That is, folks who
write RPG III as nicely as possible can already say "hey, our code is
so much better than that crap in your presentation".

Come to think of it, while your points are absolutely valid (that
generated code is compiled by the same compiler and is legitimately
representative of actual, production, real-world code), I'm not sure
that such code would be the best way to serve *any* likely agenda. For
example, even if the agenda had to do with highlighting what many
consider "non-ILE improvements" introduced by RPG IV (like longer
names, BIFs, EVAL, etc.), it still would probably be more illustrative
to use the nicest RPG III code possible.

Generated code is really its own beast. There are probably code
generators that emit non-ILE RPG IV code, and other code generators
that even emit full-on ILE RPG code (complete with subprocedures,
organized as modules and service programs, and so forth). So, my guess
is that generated code, while valid and perhaps interesting to look at
in some ways, would most likely be kind of distracting in a
presentation. Unless that presentation is specifically about code
generation.

John Y.