Re: RFE String interpolation for RPG

On Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 9:01 AM Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Seems to me that developers from other worlds might be familiar with the
syntax of [s]printf

That's basically just C and a few of its descendants, notably Java and Go.

Fewer and fewer programmers program exclusively in that small circle
of languages. It is increasingly rare these days to find someone who
is NOT familiar with at least one of JavaScript, Python, C#, PHP, or
Bash, or a host of other languages which use a syntax closer to the
current proposal.

And Java and Go both have readily available alternatives, so even
there people may be familiar with other syntaxes.

so if this RFE goes through, I'd suggest it use
that syntax

Respectfully, I think that's a bad idea. If the goal is to make RPG
more modern and more programmer-friendly, it should strive to be more
like C#, not like C.

Also, it is telling that at least Python and Scala (and maybe others,
I don't know) started out with printf-style interpolation but have
since added something like the current RFE. Whereas no languages that
I know of have gone in the opposite direction.

In my opinion, a more worthwhile idea to consider is whether to
explicitly support arbitrary expressions (like JavaScript, Python, C#,
and others), not just individual variables.

John Y.