Re: Learning RPG IV advanced techniques

1967. Working for a company keypunching payroll data in Durango, Colorado.
They were using punch boards to program some IBM computer.

The fascinating part to me is that they had a bed in the office and they
would start working on a program and they would stay in the office for days
or weeks taking turns sleeping working to complete one of these monsters.

The other funny part of that job was that I spent 3 months keying the data
onto what looked like a calculator and it punched a tape. Finally after 3
months of work, someone tried to read the tapes. Someone had forgotten to
program the negative sign and everything went into the trash.

Moral of the story. Check early and check often.

On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 6:47 AM Vernon Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Punch cards, yes - it could be worse - it could be patch boards. I
worked for a guy who used to do those. Have never actually seen them
myself.

Vern

On 11/6/2020 5:07 AM, Joep Beckeringh wrote:

James,

There is quite a difference between 'ignoring every feature' and 'not

using every feature'.

I don't think I have used every feature of RPG, but I have used primary

and secondary files, matching records and look-ahead fields. And no, I am
not using them anymore.

And I think it's great that RPG can be fully free now. It is much easier

to explain the features of RPG to newcomers, when the rest of the language
looks familiar, than having to explain punch cards first.

Joep Beckeringh
Pantheon Automatisering B.V.


-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: RPG400-L <rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Namens James H. H.

Lampert

Verzonden: vrijdag 6 november 2020 00:39
Aan: RPG programming on IBM i <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Onderwerp: Re: Learning RPG IV advanced techniques

On 11/5/20 2:29 PM, Roger Harman wrote:

Must be something wrong with my email. I just got something from 1980

re: RPG Cycle....

If I live to see a working warp drive, I will never understand how

anybody can claim to specialize in a particular programming language, and
yet (1) ignore every feature unique to the language, or (2) push to make
that language look like every other HLL.

Then again, I've never understood why anybody would want to specialize

in one programming language in the first place.

--
James H. H. Lampert
Specialist in Mixed Language Work

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