Re: what was the single mgmt decision made in mid-1990s that slowed the evolution of ILE/RPG?

From: Steve Richter
In windows you can still code in C against the WIN32 API.
Or use .NET and managed code.

Again, I don't understand your point, other than you love MS languages and runtime environments. But if you've chosen to leave the IBM i platform, why can't you leave it alone? Why the continuous baiting and complaining?

RPG programs fit nicely in-between the two extremes you delineated. They run in a virtual machine and receive the support of a virtual machine, but the ILE runtime is not bloated like MS .Net. I for one, like that.

If a decision was made to cutoff development of ILE, I wish people in
the know had spoken up and made the decision public.

Gossip. IBM has clearly invested more in Java and J2EE in recent years, but they haven't abandoned ILE. Since you're a fan of "managed code" and "garbage collection", maybe you should just use Java, instead of whining about ILE.