Alberto Monteiro wrote: > > Jose J. Ortiz-Carlo wrote: > > > > If I have to choose between coding COBOL and coding RPG, > > I would much rather go for COBOL. > > > What is RPG? I know two things that use this AFT, but > none of them are computer languages.
RPG is/was a programming language that grew out of a text processing application. It invovles column-specific commands (i.e. if col. 47 contains a "3", then do this... (as defined by the language). Later on in its lifecycle, the specs were expanded to allow for more robust programming than page breaks, subtotals, and other statistical computations while processing a data file. Not a fun language to program in, especially if you don't like putting tape on your monitor. Probably the closest current "programming language" match in function and style to RPG is Crystal Reports. > > > I feel I can exercise a lot more control with a > > computer programming language that uses instructions > > that resemble natural language. > > This is your feeling, but not mine. I think a computer > language that adds unnecessary symbols make it harder > to understand what the code is doing. Properly formatted, > languages with _less_ symbols are more clear. I like, > for example, to compare C with Pascal. > He's not talking about whether or not to include things such as articles, prefixes, suffixes in your syntax, he means being able to use syntax instead of format-specific switches. -- Matt _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
