Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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A little bit off-topic, but since it's relevant to numeric field sizes : Bob, I know you know this, but it's not every day you can catch Cozzi at something . If "debt" and "deficit" were RPG data types, using them in the same sentence would get you a severity-80 compiler error along the lines of "data types incompatible". "With the national debt going from a $1.4 trillion surplus.. to the largest deficit in history, we may need longer numeric variables." The 1.4 trillion surplus was in the deficit, while the debt continues to climb. You can pay on the debt while it continues to grow, if you don't pay down the principal, same as your credit card.

[Guest.Visitor]

Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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Continuing off topic... $1.4 TRILLION? Where did that figure come from? Thrown for a loop, I couldn't finish the rest of the article. Aren't we a picky bunch? I certainly wouldn't want to write for us.

[David Abramowitz]

Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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Bob Cozzi wrote: Today, I am the leader of the apparent lost cause, trying to get IBM to stop enhancing RPG IV on each and every release of OS/400. I am with you on this one Bob, but for a different reason: Many of the enhancements to RPG IV have done little more than providing different means of accomplishing the same end. The potential for confusion among competent programmers is compounded with each new opcode. It is conceivable that given the same task, different programmers could come up with markedly different code. This release seems to provide greater functionality, and I hope that becomes a trend. There are features and functions that could still provide greater productivity instead of reinventing the wheel. Dave

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Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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I was writing programs in RPG on the IBM System/3, then the S/36, before the S/38. You are so lucky to have started on the S/38! By then it was much easier. Sandi

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Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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Just because we are "techies" doesn't mean we don't worry about current issues and are not concerned about the economy, etc... Nice to see those sort of comments (deficits,etc.) in there Bob, and a nice segway with the field length. This was actually an issue for one of the companies I worked for a few years back. They had to write an 8 digit check (not counting decimals)once to the IRS. They realized the design of the accounting system was not prepared for such a number anywhere. Rather than changing all the files, recompiling the programs, they just split it up into two checks. The government didn't complain.

[R.Daugherty]

Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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Sun dropped the overloaded operators feature of C++ when they developed Java, or Gosling designed Oak or however you want to say it, because they had a good vision. With overloaded operators you couldn't trust the code you were looking at. They wanted anyone to be able to go into Java code and understand it, so also no preprocessing macros that had the tendency to create variations of the language. I had seen the same thing with macros in PC assembler many years ago. The code was unreadable. That used to be the beautiful vision of RPG/III/400. We could go into any environment and be productive off the bat. In my opinion no business programmers were more productive than S/3x programmers in those days. These things add productivity to RPG? It's the age old optical illusion of terseness as productivity, horizontal hopskotching to and fro embedded functions as productivity, unseen magic as productivity. The people who gave us the magic of S/3x are probably all gone, and in place of that vision of elegance is something that makes Java look elegant, simple, and stable, just like RPG used to be, when programmers were programmers and I/O meant something. Now we're called code monkeys and the jobs shipped overseas. After all, anyone can write SQL I guess. Cycles are cheap, and IBM sells computers. Well, we brought all kinds of magic to manufacturing companies across America and the world in those days when cycles weren't cheap, when we still had manufacturing companies here wanting to do unique things. I'm glad I experienced those days. This stuff is not more productive. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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I don't understand this "new" feature in V5R3. RPG IV can already do a "READ INTO".

 FMyFile IF E Disk D InputData DS LikeRec(Record1) C READ Record1 InputData

Chris

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Feature Dribble Continues for RPG IV with Next Release

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I haven't programmed in COBOL for 4 years now. A READ INTO just reads a record into a working storage data structure. How is my RPG example different from that? Maybe our definition of an external DS is different. To me this is a DS where you pull in a predefined definition such as a file layout with EXTNAME or LIKEREC. Chris