RPG was first offered as a language on the IBM 704 computers in the 1960's and was even promoted as an end-user language--funny, until you realize that programming in those days was done in assembler, and the original RPG was at least a level higher than that.
I recall when I was programming in RPG II on an S/34. The boss brought the entire computing staff of 3 people to attend a seminar in Structured Programming. In preparation for that, I was reading a book on Structured Programming in Basic (can't remember the author or exact title). The intro assured me that "you can do structured programming in any language, wheter it's COBOL, PL/I or (God forbid) RPG." We wer all laughing at that, as it is indeed hard to do structured programmming without loop constructs (use GOTO) or even an if/else statement (use indicators). But, as you say, RPG has evolved since then and is even moving to free-form instead of the original form-filling metaphor.
The RULE project
http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/rule/
is working on an installer to enable a Red Hat install with less RAM. Currently works with 12 Mb, target is 8 Mb.
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>Don't you know that stuff makes you code obese and causes an early demise necessitating frequent checkups?
By a team of pathologists working in rotation?
RPG was first offered as a language on the IBM 704 computers in the 1960's and was even promoted as an end-user language--funny, until you realize that programming in those days was done in assembler, and the original RPG was at least a level higher than that. I recall when I was programming in RPG II on an S/34. The boss brought the entire computing staff of 3 people to attend a seminar in Structured Programming. In preparation for that, I was reading a book on Structured Programming in Basic (can't remember the author or exact title). The intro assured me that "you can do structured programming in any language, wheter it's COBOL, PL/I or (God forbid) RPG." We wer all laughing at that, as it is indeed hard to do structured programmming without loop constructs (use GOTO) or even an if/else statement (use indicators). But, as you say, RPG has evolved since then and is even moving to free-form instead of the original form-filling metaphor.
check out the RULE project to install Red Hat 7.2 on less capable systems.
The RULE project http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/rule/ is working on an installer to enable a Red Hat install with less RAM. Currently works with 12 Mb, target is 8 Mb.