On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Derek Peschel wrote:
> I was going to mention RPG in my original post but I changed my mind. I
> don't think it's quite as old as COBOL and FORTRAN.
>
> Some of IBM's development environments are called "VisualAge". There is a
> VisualAge Smalltalk and a VisualAge Java (written in VisualAge Smalltalk :)).
> Well, there's also a VisualAge RPG. I find that quite ironic considering
> the utter opacity of RPG.
Believe it or not people still use that abomination. My first exposure to
it was in 12th grade. My counselor showed me some programs he wrote and
wanted me to learn RPG so I could do some programming for him (he used to
pull me out of class to ask me computer questions :)
Its funny because it's programmed much like the earlier versions of
ForTran, where each statement and associated arguments and data must start
in a particular column due to its origins as a punched card language.
I would hope the latest version of RPG does away with the archaic column
specificity.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Mon Apr 05 1999 - 17:24:23 BST