Talk:IBM RPG

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Contents 1 OOP 2 Advertisement 3 BASIC? 4 RPG II for System 360 5 Rarity among offered courses 6 External link to IBM manual broken (at least when I tried it)

[edit] OOP

The text says that OOP features where added to RPG, but the features metioned doesnt seem so OOP, except static/dynamic binding. Perhaps I am picky...

Agreed - this is not OOP. I don't know anything about RPG but the information given here does not back up the claim that it has OOP features. Thparkth (talk) 11:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe that's correct, Thparkth. I've been programming in RPG for about 25 years, and am very familiar with it. While I love RPGIV, it is not an OOP language. IBM agrees, stating, "...C++ code is more difficult to call from RPG or COBOL programs. These two languages are not object-oriented, so it is easier to call a C function than a C++ method of an object..." The Dogfather (talk) 19:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Advertisement

I removed this advertisement for a book due to obvious POV issues:

"Who Knew You Could Do That with RPG IV? A Sorcerer's Guide to System Access and More" is a redbook focused on RPG IV as a modern, thriving, and rich application development language for the 21st century. It is written for those AS/400 system programmers that are in the cusp between RPG/400 and RPG IV and are looking for hints and tips to make the move forward worth their while. This book promises to drop little golden nuggets of information in the form of code samples and style guidelines. Picking up each golden nugget will lead you step-by-step down the path that will eventually allow you to take full advantage of RPG IV and the Integrated Language Environment (ILE). Even the most experienced RPG IV programmer will find something useful in this redbook.

It sounds almost like it was copied right off the back cover of the book, especially toward the end, and I see no evidence that this book is more notable than every other RPG IV book. Please do not re-add this content until these issues are settled. Deco 00:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

N.B. The redbook is downloadable for free in PDF format (following the link above) where it has received a five star rating from the user community, so the above text is an advertisement in the true sense of the word but might not be considered to be a commercial advert, even though a hard copy is available for purchase.

[edit] BASIC?

The two languages available at the time RPG was first introduced were COBOL and Fortran. BASIC came along in the mid- to late-1960s as a timesharing language at Dartmouth College. It was the Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. The BASIC of today retains the clumsiness of the original BASIC with a patina of object-orientedness. So, this article on RPG takes a backward glance at RPG's history without fully understanding the history or context. I think RPG originally generated COBOL source decks from RPG source decks. If you don't know what a "deck" is then perhaps you shouldn't be writing very much about history. (by 70.108.195.219)

Really? Look at this page and you'll see that it's not quite like that. BASIC came out the same year as RPG, but it was designed as a teaching language, not a commercial one. RPG in it's earliest forms was basically just a set of rules acted on by a big loop so I'm sure it didn't take anywhere near the resources of COBOL (or Fortran, Algol, PL/1 etc). There may have been implementations that compiled to COBOL, but for RPG II on the System/3 (decks of 96 hole cards!) that *certainly* wasn't the case. Snori

[edit] RPG II for System 360

The comment in the History section, "RPG was further developed by IBM for their range of mainframe systems, especially the S/360 - as RPG II" is wrong.

I worked on System 360s from the mid-sixties until the entry of the S/370. We had an RPG compiler in our shop and I used it for some reporting work running the BPS (Basic Programming Support) operating system. I don't believe RPG ran under the TOS or DOS, but I could be wrong.

RPG II was the flagship language with the introduction of the IBM System/3 in 1970. I worked on converting a System 1130/Fortran system to one of the first System/3 Mod 10's delivered in the U.S. RPG II was a very strong language for small business programming as long as applications focused on printed reporting. It was common for us to invent our own disk indexing systems to make up for limitations in the built-in facilities.

RPG was basically a non-entity on IBM mainframes, always second to COBOL in business shops. You could say that COBOL was the primary business language of S/360 and IBM'S Data Processing Division (basically big business),

RPG was used extensively on the IBM 360 Mod 20 but that machine quickly became the domain of IBM's new General Systems Division. It was also common for GSD to sell some small businesses the IBM 1130 using Fortran with Commercial sub-routines. However, the 1130 was part of IBM's scientific group and was always intended as a floating point scientific machine. It's use as a business computer was a stop gap measure for small companies that could not afford a Mod 20.

RPG II was the primary business language of System/3 and the introduction of System/3 was a major breakthrough for IBM's General Systems Division.

With the advent of GSD's Sys/3 Model 15 running RPG II and CCP, the GSD began competing directly with DPD for customers. The Mod 15 was strong enough to compete head-on with lower-end S/370 machines. This was very convenient for IBM at the time because they were undergoing a long anti-trust battle.

There should be some collaboration and then a clean-up of the History section.

Hope this helps, --YORD-the-unknown 22:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

My first job (as a Trainee Programmer) in 1978 was in a shop with a System/3 Model 15D. The version of RPG was definitely RPG II. RPG III came into existence later on the System/38. In 1982, I also worked very briefly in RPG II on an IBM 4331 running DOS/VSE. The major language of that shop was PL/1. Cymruisrael 07:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

How right you are. RPG III came in with System/38. BTW, PL/1 was really an advanced language that I always thought should take the place of COBOL but IBM was always noted for its focus on backward compatibility. For this reason, COBOL remained dominant in the mainframe shops and RPG (and all varieties) remained dominant in what came to be know as the mid-range shops. --YORD-the-unknown 14:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Another correction. The System 3 card system was introduced in 1969, but the disk based system was introduced in 1970. I never worked on the card system but our shop was one of the frist 10 shops to implement the disk system. Getting the timeline straight is a little bit more challenging after 30+ years. --YORD-the-unknown 14:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rarity among offered courses

How valuable does anyone think it would be to mention that not too many colleges/universities teach this anymore? I've attended and/or looked into roughly eight colleges between MI and AZ, and only one of them offers any AS/400+RPG at all, and it's all introductory stuff.

When the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) published the History of Programming Languages in 1996, RPG was not memtioned. Nonetheless, RPG in all of its forms has powered hundreds of thousands of businesses for decades. I can understand why RPG, even in its newest form, isn't taught in colleges and universities, there are simply too many superior programming languages to choose from.

Interestingly, the driving forces behind COBOL (Grace Hopper), C (Kernigan & Ritchie), SmallTalk (Alan Kay) and other important programming languages are well known, but does anyone have citable evidence as to who the individual(s) is who was who invented RPG? YORD-the-unknown 18:51, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External link to IBM manual broken (at least when I tried it)

External links IBM (1964). IBM 1401 RPG manual. C24-3261-1. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.153.236.173 (talk) 11:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC).