IHeartBadCode

Oh my goodness. I have a hard time getting folks to stop using QRPGLESRC and QCBLLESRC and start using the IFS so that we can put source in places like /home/devname/src. And don’t even get me started, we still have DDS defined files even after IBM deprecated them in favor of SQL DDL tables.

The newest IBM i machines (formerly AS/400) even come with git but can’t use that because that’s too confusing for some still. And oh my goodness, RPGLE now comes with a builtin %upper() and %lower() but folks still using %xlate(), which doesn’t work with things like UTF-8. I can’t with some of the older devs at my place and I’m not exactly a spring chicken.

All these tools IBM packs in to help people make more modern software and convert the older stuff to more modern implementations, but biggest problem I have is getting others to learn the new stuff and getting legal to be okay with major changes.

That’s the fun thing about some of the older systems. Program names were limited to eight or ten characters so you had to get creative with naming within a library (basically the equal of a folder on AS/360 … AS/400 systems) if it got large.

      IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
      PROGRAM-ID. YOURWRNG.
      ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
      PROCEDURE DIVISION.
          DISPLAY 'YOU WERE WRONG MOM'.
          STOP RUN.

Lucky bastards.