I think the reason Microsoft development tools are so good it that they have thousands of programmers in-house developing Microsoft's own applications with them and, most likely, using the tools themselves to develop the tools. RDi is a niche product and I suspect the developers don't get that much opportunity to write real RPG or COBOL applications with their own tools.
In my opinion, IBM should drop the silly price tag, port RDi to a modern IDE like VS Code and open source it so that the developers that actually use the product in anger (literally in many cases 😊 ) can contribute to it. There are a couple of open source alternatives already but the number of people in our environment who have the skills and inclination to write them is small and to my mind it would make far more sense for those resources to be pooled with IBM's on a single open source project.
________________________________
From: WDSCI-L <wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Ken Killian <kkillian@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 20 August 2018 15:31
To: Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio Client for System i & iSeries
Subject: Re: [WDSCI-L] Enter splits lines (was: Officially the weirdest thing I've seen in RDi)
Oh well falling back to Reliable NotePad++, it has ZERO PROBLEMS with splitting lines. And actually lines it up on the next paragraph. Perfectly EVERY TIME. I admit, I expect too much for RDI. I need to have realistic expectations for RDI. Do not expect too much. Concur.
Gee, I didn't think splitting a line was rocket science, and requires to disable the parser to stop code from being erased.
I am require to set up test-cases using RPG-UNIT, and I have to cut & paste huge SQL-statements to set up test data for repeated test-cases.
So, my case usage is probably out of the ordinary. Plus, using NotePad++, I don't have to shift each line split to line up correctly either. Works 100% much better in NotePad++ anyway. I have a work-around for the limitations of RDI.
A quality software product speaks for itself, and the brand.
My co-workers laugh nervously, asking meekly, cannot IBM do line splitting? I have to reply, "NO, sadly, and for what ever reason, they cannot handle it on a consistent basis. No wonder Microsoft tool-set is far superior. And I have to use Alt+S to split sql statements, but I can use <Enter> to split "normal" lines.
As long as I work around for limitations of coding RDI, I am good to go!
Thanks for the insight. I have no doubt that RDI will eventual get better after 4-years of college.
-Ken Killian-
________________________________
From: WDSCI-L <wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2018 7:54 AM
To: Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio Client for System i & iSeries
Subject: Re: [WDSCI-L] Enter splits lines (was: Officially the weirdest thing I've seen in RDi)
On Sat, 18 Aug 2018 at 03:11, Vernon Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Y'all - the most recent versions of RDi do split the line at the cursor
when you press Enter - to get the previous behavior - to get a new line,
you press Ctrl-Enter.
That was very welcome, but there is a complex interaction between the
'line splitter' and 'SQL formatter' functionality that is not
immediately intuitive to me. Maybe the list can help. Here is some
source:
exec sql
declare fred cursor for
select *
from systables;
x = y + 500;
I've got it in an SQLRPGLE.
My Preferences in Remote Systems > Remote Systems LPEX Editor > IBM i
Parsers > ILE RPG > Free-Form SQL Formatting are simple. Everything
is unchecked except Automatic indentkeys (Filter on SQL).
In Remote Systems > Remote Systems LPEX Editor > IBM i Parsers > ILE
RPG > Key Behavior I have
Alt-S splits and shifts
Enter splits in free form
Automatic indent
Automatic closure of control block
Tab indents
In LPEX Editor > User Key Actions, I have nothing.
Now put the cursor on the '5' in 'x = y + 500;'
Press Enter.
In my window, the 500 moves down one line and is shifted to the left
so it lines up with the '=' sign above.
I rather like that
This works the same in Insert or Overstrike mode..
Now place the cursor on the 'c' in 'declare fred cursor for'.
Press Enter.
My editor gives me a new, empty line after 'declare fred cursor for'.
It behaves exactly like Ctrl-Enter in free-form calcs.
I'm not keen on that because in my head I think of SQL statements as
free-form calculations. RDi has a different opinion :-)
Try the same experiment using the numeric keypad Enter, and it's
different to each other yet again. This time the SQL spli/shifts but
the calcs split/shift/no indent. I'd be OK with any of these
behaviours if they were entirely consistent - if Main Enter always did
X and Numeric Enter always did Y.
You've been on the RDi road with me for a long time Vern, so I know I
don't need to go into the history of the thing. I have a hypothesis
that because RDi was born in the columnar age, grew into a teen in the
columnar age, and is now a college student in the emoji age, there are
more than a few internal RDi processes that simply assume columnar
code. As we find and report them to IBM, I'm sure they'll get
addressed. I've never been more optimistic about RPG and RDi in 30
years. It's a great time to be an RPG programmer.
As for my Microsoft colleagues ribbing me about this or that, well
that's what bonds us together as programmers. They have their own
complaints about their IDE. I truly feel for the RDi developers.
They're writing a thing for programmers. Speaking for myself, as a
programmer, I Could Do That Better Then Those Other Programmers Did.
I'm sure of that, regardless of how true it actually may be (spoiler:
not remotely true). Do doctors make the worst patients? Do
programmers make the worst IDE users? Hm.
--buck
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