Time for RPG to change it's name

[dchristie]

I just finished reading the future enhancements planned for RPG and it is starting to look more like Java, or C++ (i.e. Free-Form calculation specs which must end with a ;). Does the term Report-Program-Generator really apply anymore? Any ideas for a new name or just leave well enough alone? Since IBM in in the name change mode, I thought I'd bring this up.

[Guest.Visitor]

APL - All Purpose Language? Hmmm, sounds too familiar. The name probably belongs to someone else. IDL - Integraged Data Language? Hmmm, also sounds familiar. ILE IDL, is that too many <eye> sounds? Starlight - My dog's name? Ooops, I didn't mean to imply RPG was a dog. I give up!

[Guest.Visitor]

My Java programming friends call it BRT - banging rocks together.

[tdaly@sddsystems.com]

"silver" as in silverlake??? "I" as in i-series??? what not-we have "c" I dunno.

[Guest.Visitor]

I thought of iSeries Programming Language, but IPL might confuse operators. Then I thought of iSeries RPG Successor - IRS - but that might cost too much. And iSeries Compiler Language - ICL - may not sound too good coming from IBM. I didn't really like iSeries Development Oriented Language - IDOL - as it isn't a TLA (Three Letter Acronym). So I settled for iSeries New RPG - INR so we can be on the INR circle. Russell

[Guest.Visitor]

'I' sounds good; shorthand for 'I Can't Believe It's Not Java!'. There would then be an upgrade path to I+ ('I Still Can't Believe It's Not Java!')...

[Guest.Visitor]

I think it is indeed time to change the name. V-APG (Visual App Pgm Gen.), or something catchy.

[Guest.Visitor]

KCM2 wrote: "I think it is indeed time to change the name. V-APG (Visual App Pgm Gen.), or something catchy." Come on KCM2! This is a dot com disease. It doesn't work, no matter how many businesses change the names of their companies and their products to new names. Like Prince, they will all come to their senses eventually... For those that had the gall to compare to Java and C++, RPG has gained the syntax capabilities of Basic and Pascal with its subprocedure functions and inline invocations to those functions in Eval statements and the new X specs. The capability of creating a pointer and accessing it is not in the same universe even as the pointer oriented programming of C, and for me to go further and compare to Java and C++ is just embarrassing. As for app generation, there is no app generation by RPG. The apps are generated by sweat and elbow grease. There is nothing wrong with writing modules of business logic with efficient record level I/O and straight forward business data manipulation. No one will confuse RPG IV with anything catchy ever, no matter what you call it. RPG is a legacy name that generated legacy systems that many companies of all sizes still run their businesses on despite wave after wave of wannabes trying to replace the systems with something catchy. Be proud of what we do and what we do it with. A visual interface does not change the back end of our database processing programs, nor should it. Let's use the new modularity functionality of RPG IV syntax and ILE modules to make our business software serve visual interfaces better than the Unix and NT wienies, and proudly call it RPG. We do it better. Ralph ralph@ee.net

[Guest.Visitor]

I really do believe that RPG is a good language suffering from a perception problem. I do think the future is Visual. I have looked at the syntax of JAVA, I code in VB, I have and do code in RPG. Comparatively they are all good tools. None of these are head and shoulders above the rest. RPG can grow if the Visual tool grows and generates cross platform code giving you a skill set that is not a dead end. Application Generators must create readable code under the covers or they are something to be advoided.

[Guest.Visitor]

I will keep calling it BSE (shorthand for nvCFJ) ;-) cheers, Martin