Re: Impossible to even think about rewriting in RPG

On 6/27/2011 10:30 AM, John Yeung wrote:

On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 7:45 AM, Tommy Holden wrote:

Until like 3 months ago I used SEU/PDM for doing ILE programming complete
with service programs, modules & APIs. Blaming the IDE is a red herring.
It's a desire to make the effort that is to blame.

Thanks,
Tommy Holden

I'm not *blaming* the IDE. I'm saying that for me, in my workplace,
in my opinion, it's not the best use of my time. Of course you can do
ILE programming with SEU and PDM. And if you do, great. I am all for
it. But it *does* have a cost, and is not only related to
willingness.

Look at Java for a much more stark illustration of the cost of an
inferior development environment. How many Java programmers who use
Notepad or EDTF or some such are anywhere near as productive as Java
programmers using Eclipse? There is a very real cost to having to
type boatloads and boatloads of boilerplate yourself. While you are
doing that, you're not really contributing value, you're not really
working on the business problem. You are typing (or copying and
pasting) lots and lots and lots of stuff that either the compiler or
the IDE should be able to do for you. It's a bloody waste of time.

For me, personally, I have not seen ILE code that is *so much better*
than OPM code that there is a compelling argument to switch. At least
at my workplace, the benefit is very close to zero. And the cost is
much greater than zero. If there were some demonstration that there
would be significant benefit (modularity, maintainability,
performance, functionality), or some way to mitigate the cost (less
clunky development process), then of course it would be worth
revisiting.

I think some clarity would be added to the conversation if we made the
distinction between RPG IV syntax and modern thinking.

A program I wrote as part of a 4 program 'load, sort, edit, update'
application in 1978 RPG II obviously used 1970s thinking to architect
it. When that program was converted to RPG III, then RPG/400 and
finally RPG IV, the architecture didn't change. The thinking didn't
change. So no, a program in RPG IV syntax doesn't necessarily offer
anything to the programmer that the same program - the same architecture
- offers the programmer in RPG/400.

I believe that a programmer using modern software engineering principles
would find it painful to write code that doesn't use local variables; a
feature of RPG IV. The IDE is a similar issue; it is not easy to
express modern thoughts, modern principles when one navigates the source
by tracking line numbers on scrap paper or compiler listings.

So, it is all too possible to express 1970s thought in RPG IV syntax,
but it is difficult to express 2011 thought in RPG/400 syntax using SEU.
Not impossible, but difficult.

Why make my life difficult if I already paid for RPG IV and WDSC?
Respectfully submitted,
--buck