From: jth@infodyn.com (Jabba The Hutt)
Subject: Re: What is RPG ???
Organization: Information Dynamics, Saratoga, CA, USA
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 02:58:00 GMT

In article <Oct06.213159.62770@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sgcraw@CS.ColoState.EDU (stewart crawford) writes:
>In article <1992Oct2.015817.183@wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu> ckcheng@wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu writes:
>>     Hey, does anybody heard of RPG (language or system?, NOT role playing game
>>) ?  Can anyone talk about it in this category or open a new category ?
>
>
>From the paucity of responses and the negative tone of those posted,
>please let me shed some light on this poor language based on my two
>years of programming with it...
>
>TRUE, RPG was the first 4GL when it came to file processing.
>File handling was basically transparent; RPG read files in a line
>at a time, breaking the data fields out into the variable names you
>defined, and then gave a chance to use the data before continuing
>on to the next line.  Sounds a bit like AWK, eh?  Except you got to
>use real variable names...
>
>For hierarchically oriented data (i.e. fields exist to identify
>progressivly larger entities, such as individual, group, department, etc...),
>RPG makes report writing a breeze, automatically providing interrupt
>mechanisms when entity id's change, thus transparently supporting
>subtotals, etc.  It was the precursor of group-functions in SQL.
>
>When it came to mathematical manipulations, however, it was a brave
>step back toward assembler-level primitives, hence the "love" engendered
>into most RPG programmers.  One nice touch, though, was the capturing
>of condition-code info after each mathematical operation, enabling you
>to set software switches to capture this logical info.  Succeding statements
>could then be preceeded by these switches, and their execution was conditioned
>by the switch setting.  GUARDED CONSTRUCTS, anyone ???
>
>Many other DP-style needs were addressed transparently, such as input
>file sorting, matching of master & transaction files records, in-core
>(and I do mean core) b-tree indices to speed random file access, etc.
>
>My one claim to RPG fame was writing a routine to calculate cube-roots
>in this DP language, once again proving that given a strong enough screwdriver,
>I can hack anything to bits...
>
>	Stew Crawford
>	sgcraw@cs.colostate.edu


RPG stands for "Ridiculous Piece of Garbage".

No, really it stands for "Report Program Generator", but I like my
answer better.  My limited exposure to the language is enough to
convince me of two things:
  1.  It's easier to code in Basic
  2.  Anything can be done better and faster in almost *ANY* other language.

JTH
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