What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG?

[amoulton@aacanet.org]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
I couldn't disagree more with the article. I like getting the new functionality without having to wait. I understand the problem for consultants and people who need to work on systems at various levels, but I am a person in charge of two copmputers I keep at the same level. Why should I have to wait to make life easier for the consultants and multi level companies. I have programmed in RPG,RPGII, RPGIV and have enjoyed many of the enhancements. If you work on multilevel machine you shouldn't worrry about the latest and greatest functions. Decide what is the lowest common denominator and use that level. Heck pullout the chaining record format if you want, but I will take all the fucntionalaity I can get. The update you mentioned sounds great to me as I never use the update now becuase I never want to update all the fields. So now I can use update instead of except. Kepp up the good work IBM!

[mis@ptl-inc.com]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
I agree with Bob completely on IBM's rollout strategy. They are simply adding too many enhancements (changes) way too fast. But... Most of the changes they have introduced are beneficial to the language in my opinion. Coding in free-form has saved me keystrokes (no more EVAL) and nesting makes it much easier to recognize program logic visually. With the added functionality of the new UPDATE opcode, exception output doesn't have to be used to protect fields in a record that are not being updated. What if you had to take back %EDITC? There were somethings that we were using the C Run-Time library to accomplish but IBM has addressed some of these issues in V5R2 so more explaining the "H BNDDIR('QC2LE')". We're a shop of 4 coding for about 500 users. So far not one of us has looked at the enhancements offered by IBM to the RPG language and said "I wish they hadn't added that."

[jwh@onofrio.com]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
IBM is notoriously known for always being behind when it comes to technology changes. I love the fact that most new releases of the OS contain new and improved opcodes and functionality. The typical programmer doesn't have to utilize these new tools and can bypass the literature that discusses these functions. Heck, even IBM has banned ILE in certain shops because they have programmers that can't grasp the concept thus stifling innovation from the others coders. In my shop I have to do it all. Without the new functionality and increased ability of RPG we'd be stuck with junk like NT for our Internet services instead of our tried true blue iSeries. Do nothing to stop IBM from improving RPG. Embrace the changes if you wish, ignore them if you wish, but only ignore them if you wish to be left behind like every other IBM technology introduction. Why do you think everyone kept saying RPG was dead and Java is the world's savior? Java is new and innovative and even embraced by IBM, a mistake in my opinion. These new continuous changes in RPG have breathed new life into old code routines and give younger coders more power to keep RPG alive in a Unix/Windows world.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
I don't get it. Complain if they do nothing (I've been going to Cozzi sessions since 1990) and complain if they do something. I think the point is we all have our expectations as to how RPG should evolve. And, if our expectations aren't met then the prevailing attitude is to grumble. IBM will never meet everyone's expectations so there will always be a million grumblers out there. Unfortunately, one of the best all-time grumblers has a national forum with which to grumble. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. wrote in message news:6ae435c7.-1@WebX.WawyahGHajS... | This is a discussion about What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG?. | | Click here for the article <http://www.mcpressonline.com/mc?1@23...T.17@.6ae42ff1>.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
PTLMIS said: "I agree with Bob completely on IBM's rollout strategy. They are simply adding too many enhancements (changes) way too fast." IMO, that's not even remotely possible. Just because IBM makes a lot of changes doesn't mean you have to use, or even learn them all. Just learn and use the ones that work best for your shop. The prevailing attitude in this forum is EXACTLY why IBM never made many changes over the years. They felt that the stodgy, stubborn, graying customers that use the AS/400 line would be freaked out by it and they were afraid of alienating the stagnating customer base. So, what has it earned them? A SMALL stodgy, stubborn, graying list of customers. They weren't aggressive when the competition was and now the iSeries is small niche growing smaller by the minute. IBM is doing what they should have started doing in 1990: Aggressive improvements to the iSeries. Alas, methinks they waited too long. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
Bob, I actually like redundancy. I want more than one way to do the same thing so that I can choose the one that's the most comfortable. For example, when in Windows when I want to open a file I know that I can click on File/Open or I can press Alt-F/O or I can press CTL-O. Three "redundant" ways to do the same thing, but that gives me flexibility. Same goes for my programming language. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "Bob Cozzi" wrote in message news:6ae435c7.15@WebX.WawyahGHajS... | Thank you all for your valuable comments! Keep the coming. | Remember, my point is that RPG IV is being enhanced in a fragmented manner, not that the iSeries is evolving to quickly. Yes I want continued enhancements to RPG IV (or "RPG V") but I don't think they need to be rolled out in each release of OS/400. I would rather IBM take the time to ponder the enhancements and make sure they are consistent and valuable, rather than just release them and be done with it. My hope is for a better language, not a language with the most features or the most redundant features as some of your have noted.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
Ralph, I'm certainly not an expert with Java but I can try to answer some of your questions. 1. Even if the Java program is compiled with OPTIMIZE(40) and running natively on the AS/400, no. The time to initialize the JVM takes longer than the time to initialize an RPG program. 2. MC published 2 articles about 2 years ago that compared Java Record I/O, RPG I/O, SQL I/O, Java JDBC I/O, etc. I'm sure it's on this website somewhere (and a little outdated now). Try searching for "HOWARD ARNER" and "Database performance". 3. Are you talking about free form RPG to Java? It's getting there but RPG will likely never support OO techniques (except maybe overloading someday). 4. Don't know! CR

[Rkyrat]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
Not only is RPG out of control but the whole computing environment. It seems that every day they come up with some new scheme or language,which requires re-training (not a bad thing, it you are a training company). But, for the poor guy in the trenches, having to re-train every 6 months or so, it's hard. So I think that the whole thing needs to be slowed way down so that it can be absorbed and digested before the next onslaught.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
There's one simple adage in business that has held true in the 27 years that I've been in I.T. management. It is: "To be successful you must embrace change. Those that don't will be left by the wayside." I've always lived by this motto and it has done well for me. To blame IBM when one can not keep up is fruitless. IBM is just now starting to move at the pace of the industry. They MUST move at this pace or the future of the iSeries is doomed. The thing to understand is that the current "Y" generation, those just now coming out of college, are used to a frenetic pace. They will be the drivers and decision makers of the future and they will choose products that keep up with their pace. There will be no stopping or slowing of the rate of change and, in fact, I expect that the rate of change will accelerate even more. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "rikyrat" wrote in message news:6ae435c7.19@WebX.WawyahGHajS... | Not only is RPG out of control but the whole computing environment. It seems that every day they come up with some new scheme or language,which requires re-training (not a bad thing, it you are a training company). But, for the poor guy in the trenches, having to re-train every 6 months or so, it's hard. So I think that the whole thing needs to be slowed way down so that it can be absorbed and digested before the next onslaught.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: What Does IBM Need to Do with RPG? **
Ralph, As to #4: I don't consider them fragmented. The fact that IBM keeps older versions around is a plus. Certainly Visual Basic 1 and Visual Basic .NET are completely different from one another yet no one considers Visual Basic a fragmented language. Why? Because Microsoft stops selling the prior version almost immediately after announcing a new version. What I'm hearing from the collective here is that because IBM supports prior versions of RPG the language has become fragmented. And, in fact, that's not the case at all. You have total freedom to stick with the compiler of your choice. IBM is not forcing you into RPG IV! If you're happy with RPG III or RPG/400 then stay there. But don't come down on IBM or the rest of the world because they choose to move forward. The threat of the future of the iSeries has nothing to do with RPG. A developer can develop in Java, RPG, Cobol or most any other language on the iSeries. The biggest threat to the iSeries is IBM. It kinda reminds me of the Ford Mustang. The Mustang was developed as a skunk works project by Lee Iacocca. When it was introduced the Ford management hated the fact that this rogue project was successful. Once Iacocca left Ford, the company tried for years to kill the Mustang (just look at the body styles of the '80s Mustangs) and couldn't. It had a strong following. Finally, in the mid '90s, Ford figured out that the Mustang was here to stay and they embraced it and it's now a fine car. Same with iSeries. IBM Armonk has been hoping the iSeries would go away for a long time. The mainframers have hated the competition. (Frank Soltis says that the most powerful server in IBM today is the iSeries.) The iSeries planners are geniuses, though. They've incorporated 5 separate architectures on the Power4 chip. One of those is the pSeries (formerly RS/6000) architecture. They were smart enough to do such a good job of developing a pSeries on the same hardware as the iSeries that they pSeries developers were eliminated from Austin. Now Rochester does all of the pSeries planning and development. (This according to Soltis at COMMON.) Do you know what other architecture is on the Power4 chip? Yep, you guessed it, a zSeries. It's sitting there, lying in wait. We'll see if IBM serious about consolidating hardware in the future, or if it's politics as usual. Today's iSeries is like the early '90s Mustang. It's got a great following but will IBM embrace it? Or has Rochester gone too far causing Armonk to lower the hammer even harder? chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "Ralph Daugherty" wrote in message news:6ae435c7.17@WebX.WawyahGHajS... | 1. Does an AS/400 compiled Java program without database I/O execute as fast as an RPG ILE program? My expectations are that it would. | | 2. Does an AS/400 compiled Java program with database I/O through Toolbox record level I/O calls execute as fast as RPG ILE program? My experience is that two years ago it benchmarked significantly slower, but my expectations are that it could run 80% as fast as ILE. | | 3. Is there any reason the syntax for freeform wouldn't be Java? | | 4. How could RPG/400, RPG IV, Code/400, and /Free not be considered a fragmentation of an industry so serious as to threaten the continued existence of software development firms developing commercial packages for the AS/400? | | rd