Re: Enter splits lines (was: Officially the weirdest thing I've seen in RDi) -- WDSCI-L

Hi,

first: I am a long term Eclipse user , since Eclipse 2.x, and RCP developer based in Eclipse.

Eclipse is a top notch IDE. There are not many IDEs out there which have a base as good as Eclipse. For example take the Java editor in Eclipse. There is no better.

You can build a decent editor based in Eclipse with less than 50 MB.

The problem is NOT Eclipse.

Open source RDi: That won't do you any gold at all. Who would develop the RDi parts? Those RPG developers who are struggling to learn ILE should now learn plugin development in Java which has a much steeper learning curve than ILE?

My 2 cents

Mihael

Am 21. August 2018 14:27:04 MESZ schrieb Tim Fathers <X700-IX2J@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

Eclipse is over 15 years old, not sure I'd call that "modern" 😊 In my
experience it's buggy bloatware and the IDEs based on it are the ones I
like to use least.

Although Eclipse is open-source, I was referring to the RDi parts of it
that should also be open sourced so that third parties don't have to
recreate the wheel when it comes to parsing the source code and keeping
the syntax up-to-date, which is a job clearly better done by the IBM
chaps.

You may be right about it not being more successful either way, but I
believe RDi would have had much greater adoption had it been a simple,
free download from the IBM website and it would be a superior product
with the additional input of the developer community.

________________________________
From: WDSCI-L <wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Mark Murphy
<jmarkmurphy@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 20 August 2018 20:30
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)

Tim, RDI is already based on a modern IDE which is already open source
right? The fact that IBM doesn't really keep up with the bleeding edge
of
Eclipse technology isn't that much of a problem. Same would happen on
whichever IDE they built over, and the community isn't really that
large
compared to some of the other communities that use Eclipse (PHP for
example). I have a hard time believing that RDI would be any more
successful on a different platform, open source or not.

On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 10:07 AM Tim Fathers <X700-IX2J@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

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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