Re: Open Source RPG ?

["M. Lazarus" <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx>]

David, Pat,

 I think that open-sourcing RPG would be a *horrible* idea.  It 
would whither and die.

1) Not enough interest.  RPG has been around for decades, yet it has 
not caught on much outside of the IBM midrange.  Open source projects 
for the /400 have been very limited.

2) This is a compiler we're talking about, not an application, 
utility or tweakable framework.  I suspect that that the pool of 
qualified (and willing) candidates for this type of project is tiny.

3) RPG depends on many of the underlying system and database support, 
e.g. journalling, native I/O, data areas, spooling, etc., which don't 
exist reliably outside of the iSeries.

4) R&D moneys won't be there and people will not want to bet the farm on it.

5) Hooks into the OS (let's say for a full native GUI interface) 
still depend on IBM, so they will probably never make it into the OS.

6) IBM does compilers well.  Why grab it from them?

 -mark



At 4/12/06 11:50 AM, you wrote:
> Very well said David. I have often wondered just exactly what
> business in their right mind would actually use "open source"
> for anything other than "just looking".
>
> I'm sure this whole open source thing has some great value,
> but to actually create a complete system written with a
> language that "might" or "might not" have support sounds like
> insanity to me.
>
>
>
> David Gibbs wrote:
>
> >
> > To gain what?
> >
> > It's not like RPG is a popular language in the open source community ...
> > and what would the advantage be?  Rapid adaptation to modern
> > technologies?  One of the strengths of RPG (indeed the iSeries, or
> > whatever it's called today, itself) is stability.  To make the RPG
> > compiler open source invites customizations ... what happens when a
> > vendor takes the RPG compiler and customizes it to their own end ...
> > nobody else would be able to use programs based on that customization
> > without having the modified compiler source.  This makes things less
> > stable.  Plus, modifications to the compiler would probably not go
> > through the same rigorous QA that IBM does.
> >
> > JMHO, of course.
> >
> > david