Re: will v6r1 RPG support main procedure recursion?

[James Lampert <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Actually, when you take out the very few things unique to RPG, like The 
Cycle, you end up with just another language, with very little to 
distinguish it from any number of other programming languages.

There are a bunch of things in RPG that, by being rigid, inflexible, 
"unitaskers" (as Alton Brown might put it), qualify as "legacy crap." A 
number of them only have meaning in Cycle programs. But The Cycle, as a 
thing in itself, is not one of them. In fact, I'd say there are more 
UNconventional ways to use The Cycle constructively than there are 
conventional ways, and as long as you understand the basic premise that 
an RPG program lives inside a "DO UNTIL LR" loop, they're perfectly 
understandable and maintainable.

Indeed, of the items you listed, Indicators are the only one that seems 
like a maintenance nightmare, but they're really just a set of 
predefined LOGICAL*1 variables (anybody here know what language 
"LOGICAL*1" comes from?), and isn't there now a way to assign more 
meaningful names to them?

I've recently noticed that the people who most vocally deprecate all use 
of The Cycle are mostly the same people who appear afraid to learn any 
other languages. Maybe it might help if somebody repackaged PL/I as a 
new kind of RPG? (Oh, wait, isn't that pretty much what they did for 
RPG/free?)