RE: RPG IV and CF-spec "keep it IBM"

[Mark Lazarus <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx>]

Bob,

At 11:31 AM 8/6/99 -0500, you wrote:

>SDA, PDM and SEU
>have not evolved. And most people don't use CODE/400. But it doesn't do all
>that much beyond SEU/PDM and SDA except run on the PC (it doesn't generate
>code, templates or provide Wizards for commonly performed tasks, instead we
>get the "You can write a Rexx routine to do that". This is fine if you like
>to do that and happen to know Rexx.)

 I agree with you here.  Why is no one pushing for some basic improvement
in the native tools?

>Adding CF-specs to RPG IV is going to create a 3rd level of RPG program
>source style. It is currently a tough business decision for IT Managers to
>allow 2 RPG source program styles (i.e., RPG III and RPG IV) now we're going
>to have a 3rd. I don't see how that helps. You know darn well the magazines
>and presentations are going to use some of this stuff in their examples.

 There are thousands of programming styles.  I think it's a lot more
difficult to switch between various programmer's code than between the
various flavors / varions of RPG.

>They people will think that it is a new language or feature that is separate
>from RPG. A say again, I just don't understand how you can justify using
>free-format CF specs when you ("you" being everyone here) apparently cannot
>widely justify using fully free-format languages like C, COBOL or C++.

 That is very different.  Each language has its pitfalls and environmental
issues (i.e. run time units, pointers, extra coding to handle /400 specific
I/O, etc.) that must be addressed.  The transition from RPG/400 to RPG IV
is a much larger hurdle to overcome than CF specs , which pretty much just
allow the usage of the left hand white space, thereby allowing indentation.
 This is not a major step in language comprehension.  It's an incremental
aid to neat coding, not a new language.

 -mark

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