Re: Microsoft Printer Compatibility Library 1.0 now available

Well RPG is an interesting choice. It's been around for a long time. It
was originally developed for
the limited purpose of generating reports from data files but ultimately
evolved into a full blown
programming language. I don't think it even had program flow control
constructs until version III.

That it is, and you're right, RPG III was the first version that had real
program flow capabilities. Though even the latest and greatest can still do
the same thing with the same logic as the original RPG. It stands for
"Report Program Generator", and that's all it was to begin with, but now
it's the best business languages I've ever used.

It's a little difficult to compare the environment it runs under, which I
believe is AS\400, with
Windows.

Yes, it is, but that's really not my point -- my point being that IBM knows
that if they ignored the existing codebase, not only would they stop selling
software upgrades, but probably hardware as well.

Of
course there's only been four since the initial version over 40 years ago
and they seem to trickle
in most of their updates.

4's a lot of major upgrades to me, and having fewer is a GOOD thing for us
out here in low margin business-land. We have to have a darn good reason to
upgrade and it's not going to happen all that often. I've only converted
about 10% of our RPG to the latest, and the reason for that is it's not
needed, the old code still does what it needs to do, so why take the time
(and spend the money) to upgrade it, just to say it's the latest and
greatest? I do new coding in the latest, of course...

They also continue to support compilers for the previous versions,
although you have to wonder why companies don't upgrade their old stuff if
it's relatively easy to
do so.

Microsoft should still support all their compilers too and as for why, I
touched on it above, it costs money for 0 benefit -- no ROI.

Probably because the software is legacy and doesn't require much in the way
of updates. I
don't think IBM makes much money from RPG and I know it doesn't really
cost them anything to
maintain.

Legacy is a buzzword only, but anyway, lots of us out here are writing new
code and maintaining old code in RPG. IBM has added a lot to RPG over the
years, so I don't think you appreciate just how much it has evolved -- it's
not in just maintenance mode, even now.

Don't know how much the AS\400 environment has actually changed over the
years, but if I recall, all
applications actually communicate with a middle ware environment and not
directly at the CPU level.
Kind of like .NET or Java. But hey, if you like the RPG language...

That's kind of a rough way of saying it, but that's exactly why the AS/400
has been so easy to migrate to different and newer hardware, the OS itself
is hardware agnostic, only the lower layer (called the MI) knows how to talk
to the hardware directly. And yes, .NET is a LOT like the way the AS/400
works, and that's a GREAT thing, but it's too bad the totally hosed language
compatibility in moving to VB .NET.

http://www.asna.com/index/Products/VisualRPG/

I've actually used it a bit, but it really doesn't cover what I do on the
PC -- I just do front end GUI's that talk to back-end logic/databases, and
VB is a lot easier to do that type of thing. I really do try to use the
best language for the job, even though it might not be my favorite thing to
do.

--
Bob Comer


"Paul Clement" <UseAdddressAtEndofMessage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:39eio25no8k9ia44tc3i9h9go1cf2hoqs6@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 17:01:14 -0500, "Robert Comer"
<bobcomer-removeme-@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

¤ > Which language are you referring to
¤
¤ I mainly use ILERPG currently. (The newest in the RPG lineage)
¤
¤ >And has there actually been any significant upgrades or changes
¤ > to the environment under which it is developed and executes?
¤
¤ VERY significant upgrades and changes to the language, the OS, and the
¤ hardware, at least as much as has gone on with the PC in the last 25
years.
¤ We went from a very proprietary 48-bit CPU to the 64-bit Power6 in
newest
¤ machines, proprietary networking and dumb terminals to TCP/IP and PC's
¤ ,maybe 12 decent sized OS upgrades (4 major), propriety DB to a version
of
¤ DB2, and as I said, one language upgrade at least as much as from Win32
to
¤ .NET, and one other pretty big upgrade. (the rest are just incremental
¤ upgrade types)
¤
¤ This last, and biggest, language upgrade was a bit harder for older
¤ programmers to fully take advantage of the advances, but even they can
¤ program in it almost immediately. (and there is a source conversion
utility
¤ that converts almost all of it to the new code -- I have yet to have a
¤ program not convert 100%)

Well RPG is an interesting choice. It's been around for a long time. It
was originally developed for
the limited purpose of generating reports from data files but ultimately
evolved into a full blown
programming language. I don't think it even had program flow control
constructs until version III.

It's a little difficult to compare the environment it runs under, which I
believe is AS\400, with
Windows. But just the same IBM has managed to maintain compatibility
between major releases. Of
course there's only been four since the initial version over 40 years ago
and they seem to trickle
in most of their updates. They also continue to support compilers for the
previous versions,
although you have to wonder why companies don't upgrade their old stuff if
it's relatively easy to
do so. Probably because the software is legacy and doesn't require much in
the way of updates. I
don't think IBM makes much money from RPG and I know it doesn't really
cost them anything to
maintain.

Don't know how much the AS\400 environment has actually changed over the
years, but if I recall, all
applications actually communicate with a middle ware environment and not
directly at the CPU level.
Kind of like .NET or Java. But hey, if you like the RPG language...

http://www.asna.com/index/Products/VisualRPG/


Paul
~~~~
Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)


.

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