Long Live RPG IV!

[EDIguru]

Long Live RPG IV!

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I agree. I use both. I have moved to RPG and ILE over the last year at my new job. The only thing holding me back before now was an old job with an old system. I think external procedure modules are great. I still use sub-routines for the exact reasons you stated though. I don't view them as something where one way has to replace the other.

[R.Daugherty]

Long Live RPG IV!

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mtulig wrote: The name RPG doesn't have the same cache' as Coke or Chevy. I see this sentiment a lot, but I don't buy it. First, not one person ever chose or avoided RPG because it stands for Report Program Generator. Quite frankly, with all these automated point and click things, since when did report generator become an old concept anyway? Secondly, after a year and a half of job hunting and talking to numerous recruiters who could barely spell RPG, everyone refers to it as ILE RPG now and is considered new even by AS/400 illiterates. ILE RPG has as much cache as is needed. People use RPG when they have an AS/400. It's not RPG that's a decision, it's having an AS/400 that is the decision not being helped by people at IBM who get paid to push everything but a world class business processing computer (where IBM's middleware is decidely not the serious kind of business processing I'm talking about, it's middleware, but apparently too niche for IBM marketing, and that's my politest take on them). By the same token, not one organization would choose to program with RPG because it has a new name. They will program with it if they have an AS/400. See above. In my opinion IBM could sell AS/400's to the medium sized companies they covet if it came bundled with something like (as I recall dimly from late 90's) VAI's Software 2000 (or whatever it's called now) with RPG source code. The prepackaged GUI with the green screen was impressive as an interface (maybe GUISYS, I don't remember). The code and features were excellent, and wouldn't that give VAI or whoever won the deal a heck of a market share and customer base for future sales. Anyway, it needs to be sold as a ready to customize business machine running lean and mean RPG code. That's the way we got to the AS/400. Maybe IBM forgot what got them to where they are. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

Long Live RPG IV!

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Renaming can't hurt at all. Unfortunately Ralph other language and platform bigots will use the RPG name and the green screen interface to reinforce their view that the Iseries/AS400 is "old technology". To those less technical executives this stuff sticks. I have experienced this first hand so don't discount this point. I know you are an advocate of tossing the green screen from prior posts. IBM has been missing the boat for years and continues to do so. One of the burning questions in my mind is why IBM doesn't MODERNIZE OS400. Eat your own cooking IBM. Instead they continue to have multiple approaches that fragment the market and leave the install base hesitant on taking the wrong road.

[rdean400@yahoo.com]

Long Live RPG IV!

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Renaming can't hurt at all. (Note: I'm not saying it WILL hurt, just that it CAN hurt). IBM has shown time and again that they know best how to mismarket the iSeries. Renaming RPG may be a good thing, but only if it comes with some serious changes to the language (e.g., converting all fixed-form specs to free-form) including ways to differentiate it from the existing 4GL. Otherwise, you'd just get a "lipstick on a pig" argument in response.

[Guest.Visitor]

Long Live RPG IV!

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Doing nothing leaves us with just the pig then on the points I raise. Us RPG fans don't go to C forums and argue that they have to change their language to look like RPG in order to transform their pig. I am a fan of adding new features to a language that is an evolution to the language but always being tempered by staying intuitive to the current coding base and to add functionality. Too often the language is being changed just for the sake of change and to look like something totally different. C coders seem to like complexity for the sake of it. No secret hand shakes or decoder rings should be necessary and certainly aren't appreciated. One other thing, IBM should unleash RPG like ANSA and let us use it elsewhere when it makes sense...

[R.Daugherty]

Long Live RPG IV!

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I wish I could write something succinct and wise, but it's Saturday morning and I haven't even had a cup of coffee yet. So I'll blame that for my confusion on your posts, kcm. What cracks me up out of the gist of many of the posts here about RPG syntax and name is that RPG syntax development is the one thing where we have a dialogue with IBM and actual responsiveness. In other words, it's the least problematic area of the AS/400. I liken talking about name changes to RPG as shuffling chairs around on the deck of the Titantic. It would have about the same effect. Other than posting that IBM should allow Java type syntax in free in the form of open braces in lieu of semicolons on block open statements and a closing brace on the matching ENDxx, and the Java == and != compare operators, along with dropping /free and /end free as everyone else suggests, I have no problems with RPG. Toronto has done and continues to do a great job on progressing RPG as a language. It ain't broke. The problems lie elsewhere, in the AS/400 visual interface infrastructure and in IBM's conflicting purposes of being a cross platform middleware stack pusher on the unique business value of the OS/400 architecture. When you say modernize OS/400, I take it you mean provide a visual interface, and with that of course I agree. I am only ticked off at IBM marketing Websphere exclusively to the degree it is a detriment to the AS/400. I could care less about J2EE stacks. Websphere is no better or worse than others. It's irrelevant to us. It's crossplatform. It has nothing to do with us and the AS/400. But it's the reason IBM has abandoned us, so I attack that, not some random J2EE stack. As for a Windows version of RPG as in ASNA, or some kind of cross platform Java equivalent of RPG, I say again that syntax is really just a minor player in all this. It's the power of the entire OS/400 infrastructure that RPG is built to take advantage of, and the AS/400 is a unique value proposition, that phrase that marketing folks like to say but is true here. RPG elsewhere isn't OS/400 elsewhere. Getting off the Websphere web page interface for the AS/400 and getting a solid interface independent EXFMT buffer with builtin support for everything from green screens to XWindows to XUL to Linux Gnome/KDE to Windows to Java Swing/Eclipse to webpages, all transparent based on current 52550 interface capabilities is the one and only thing that IBM has to do if it's committed to the AS/400 community. If they don't, they are as irrelevant as changing the name of RPG or shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titantic. rd

[H.Boldt]

Long Live RPG IV!

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Greets, Bob! It's now been almost a year since I got moved out of RPG development. And it's been even longer since I posted anything here. But seeing as we have this significant anniversary, I can't resist adding my own two cents worth. First a few nitpicks about some of the details in your article. 30 digit decimals first appeared in RPG in Release 1 of RPG/400. I remember being part of the discussions that led to the goofy decision where 30 was chosen instead of the more sensible 31. I think it had something to do with half-adjust. But in retrospect, if there was a problem with half-adjust, we could have just said that it wasn't allowed for 31 digit results, but allow 31 digits for everything else. Having names up to 4096 long is no great feature. We only did that to support SOM. Remember SOM? No? I don't either! But I suppose my biggest issue with your article is the comment "It can compete with virtually every other language out there on features and flexibility." First, it's not true. Second, it doesn't really matter anyways. (Sometimes when I see such glowing, over-the-top comments about RPG, my reaction is: "Oh, get a room!" ;-) First, I can list out numerous features found (and commonly used) in other languages missing from RPG: Object-orientation is perhaps the biggest. But also things like lists, dictionaries, and set data structures, large and powerful class library, powerful and efficient string operations including regular expression support, iterators and generators, user-defined exceptions, etc, etc. Second, it doesn't really matter anyways since RPG as currently defined works quite nicely in its particular domain, business application programs on the iSeries. It's very hard to compare one language against another since most programming languages have different goals and different target users. For example, some languages, like C, are ideal for systems programming. Would you use RPG to develop a compiler? Some languages, like RPG and COBOL, are best for business applications. For user interface programming, you use workstation DDS, or JSP, or PHP, or some such beast. For tooling, dynamic scripting languages like REXX, Perl, or Python are great. Finally, for casual hobby programming, in my own humble opinion, you can't beat Python. To illustrate, when Sudoku puzzles started appearing in the local papers, I couldn't resist writing a program to solve them. (I thought that was more interesting than solving them manually.) Of course, Python was the natural choice. I later expanded the program to also generate puzzles, some of which you can find on my Sudoku blog. Python is a perfect choice for such casual programming since it's such an easy to use, yet very productive language. But to get back on topic, RPG has indeed come a long way in the past quarter century. It's a great language for developing business applications on the iSeries. But please, Bob, don't try to oversell it. Outside its domain, there are simply too many other great languages. Cheers! Hans

[rlg118]

Long Live RPG IV!

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I would dearly love to celebrate ten years of RPG-IV, if I could find a @#$! job within 200 miles of my house. Of course, now I have to listen to the "you don't have any recent experience" routine...

[R.Daugherty]

Long Live RPG IV!

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What cracks me up is the people saying that can't program themselves. I heard that for over a year of my year and a half layoff, no recent experience, don't call us, and don't hold your breath waiting for us to call you. Finally a company gave me the hardest skills test I've ever had, writing a subfile program in two hours. I did it, but they would have judged me on what was done and how I did it just as well in evaluating me. It's pretty brutal because quite frankly I don't write a lot of code from scratch, especially something like a subfile, it's a major unnecessary reinvention of the wheel. But it sure puts to rest the "no current experience" chatter from know nothings. My major sympathy to you. After a year and a half I thought I was out of RPG programming for good. But it was going to be awhile before I wrote enough Java to feel comfortable taking the certification test, and even then I'd get not only no current experience chatter but no experience whatsoever. But at least there were a ton of Java J2EE jobs out there, at least from contractors looking for big bucks government contracts. Speaking of big bucks government contracts, and getting back on topic here, I still say that the FBI Virtual Case File system, currently in Cobol on the mainframe and a $200 million failure in Java J2EE on Oracle, should be written in RPG on the AS/400 just to show what a real system should look like. But again that just highlights where IBM is and where we are, two different places, never the twain shall meet again. rd

[J.Pluta]

Long Live RPG IV!

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I don't position RPG as the end-all and be-all of programnming. I do think it's the best language available for business logic, and it beats everything else out there by a wide margin. A WIDE margin. But I do get a little ticked off when I hear statements like this. You imply that because RPG doesn't have OO, that somehow diminishes it. That's simply not true. OO is just another programming technique, like many others: good for some things, not so good for others. Regular expression processing? Dictionaries? Who the heck cares? Much of that stuff is special purpose and rarely used in business programming. If I need it, I can call it from C or Java, I suppose. The other stuff, like lists, is stuff you ought to be able to write yourself. And while I probably wouldn't pick RPG for system programming, I use it for some very serious tool development, and it works quite well. And just for the giggles of it, I decided to write a quick Sudoku solver. Your Python version takes 350 lines. Mine takes 230 lines of RPG, of which about 50 were initializing the puzzle. Only about 180 were required to solve a generic Sudoku. I guess I'll take RPG. Joe

[H.Boldt]

Long Live RPG IV!

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Hi Joe! What ticks me off is people who misunderstand what I write. Read carefully what I wrote. Did I say that OO and dictionaries and RE's are needed for business programming? I said that it doesn't matter that RPG doesn't have these things because they're not (in general) needed for business apps. They're nice to have in other problem domains, which is why other languages have these features. In other words, I think we are in complete agreement here. My main point was simply that languages comparisons are in general meaningless since different languages have different purposes. My secondary point (I'm not sure how well I covered this) was that if you try to promote RPG as the "be all and end all" to the wider programming community, you're not going to get very far. If you want to promote RPG, in my opinion, you must be realistic about both its strengths and weaknesses. Regarding Soduko, my Python program is now up to 980 lines (including comments and white space). It not only quickly solves puzzles using a variety of analytical techniques (with backtracking used only as a last resort), but it also generates puzzles. This involves randomly generating puzzles, and filtering out puzzles that I consider too easy. Languages that support rapid program development are ideal for this, since you can easily tweak your program and carry on. The nice thing about Python is that while programming some task, you reach the point of a working solution much more quickly than with other programming languages. Cheers! Hans

[J.Pluta]

Long Live RPG IV!

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I'm just trying to make sure we are indeed in agreement here: OO is not a good thing in and of itself. There are problem domains where OO adds unnecessary overhead. Where we probably disagree is the fact that, in my view, OO is more often unnecessary, at least in business programming. That's because the vast majority of problem domains are procedural in nature, and OO only lends itself to static problem sets and even then only when the problem set is complex enough to warrant the additional overhead. Thus my point about the Soduko program. While the problem set remains in the simpler, more procedural range of simply solving a Soduko puzzle, it's easier to write it in RPG, with none of the baggage of OO class hierarchies and the like. As you begin to add features such as random-ness and fuzzy concepts such as "too easy", a softer language such as Python may make more sense, and OO may make it easier to arrange your thoughts. But those sorts of things only make it into the business world in a very specific niche (typically "what-if" analysis), and that is the niche where OO best fits. Anyway, just checking to be sure we're on the same page: RPG good for business programming, OO not so good. Joe

[H.Boldt]

Long Live RPG IV!

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I agree - OO is definitely oversold. There are definitely places where it shines, such as defining and extending interfaces. But for the most part, it's largely syntactic nicety. This gets into a "religious" discussion, but I would argue that OO is largely pointless for any compiled language! Regarding my Sudoku program, classes help organize the program. There are methods that are related to the whole puzzle object, and there are methods related to single cells. Although they're defined as objects, yes, fundamentally they are still used procedurally. However, the advantage of Python for such a program is that Python much better supports a rapid application development (RAD) environment. What I do from 9 to 5 is defined by what my employer wants. But outside of working hours, my free time is very valuable to me. When I do hobby programming, I don't care if my program is bigger. I don't care if my program is slower. I do care about the time spent writing and debugging my program. I'm not the only programmer to notice the higher productivity offered by Python. I've experienced the marvellous feeling of writing code in Python and getting done with a working program in a surprisingly short amount of time. And normally, the number of bugs I have to fix in my Python programs are much fewer and easier to fix. OK, so that's my own hobby programming. Can it relate to other programming environments? Sure! For most of us, work programming isn't just writing out application code in RPG or C (or whatever our main product is written in). There's also a fair amount of tooling that goes along with it, such as tools for build and test. In my current job, I use tools for submitting test runs which are written in Perl. For the tools I've written (such as a diff pretty-printer), I use Python. Dynamic RAD languages are ideal for tools since you often have to tweak them, you usually don't care too much about their run-time performance, and you just don't want to spend too much time debugging them. I'm not suggesting that you use Python (or Perl) for your business app development. But I will argue that there's still a place in any programmers toolkit for such a language. Cheers! Hans

[H.Boldt]

Long Live RPG IV!

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This brings up another point I think is worth discussing. Some people (I won't mention any names) argue that you can do any programming task with RPG IV. Some of these imply, if not say outright, that you don't need to learn anything else. As a result, there may be some RPG programmers who decide that they don't need to learn any other skills. The end result of this train of thought is that some people may end up stuck with few options if they are let go from their job. To bluntly rephrase a tired old saying, if the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, then the only job you're qualified to do is driving nails. I've made this point before: Since we're all in an occupation that continually changes, we all must continually re-invent ourselves. Retraining should not be considered an option to exercise when out of work. Constant retraining must be treated as a price of being employable as a computer programmer. (Gotta go now, I'm on course this week!) Cheers! Hans

[R.Daugherty]

Long Live RPG IV!

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I haven't seen anybody say we don't need to learn new languages. However, I will say this. Just learning new RPG variations used to be all that anyone in our field expected to do. Why did that change? Because IBM said we needed to learn Java, and why did they do that? Their entire purpose in life is oriented around a Java J2EE stack now, that's why. Did anyone really think it was out of concern for anyone but themselves? I see this as three different viewpoints; company, vendor, and programmer. Companies didn't start demanding Java. They want cost effective customization, with no programming language at all if possible. But they never chose software because it was written in Java and never stopped choosing software because it was written in RPG. As far as I can tell, most chose SAP or Peoplesoft which was written in neither. Did vendors start demanding Java? If there are large vendor software packages in Java, I haven't read about them. IBM wants Java so people will work with Websphere is the way it looks to me. Did programmers choose Java? They did if they were new or wanted to leave for more job opportunities, but I think most established programmers stayed with their current technology as long as the jobs held out. I don't see why that would be any different for us. Who else is told that learning the newest variations of their language is not a career path anymore, they should be learning new languages as if for some reason their current language will no longer be employed? IBM will ensure that they are right. We may need to learn a whole new language and OS and move to it, but we may also be sure that when we do, it will have a visual interface that we will program to. And it won't be Websphere web pages. rd