The big news from EDT-land is that 0.8.2 Milestone 3 is finished. There's one more milestone in this release, and we'll be done with it early next year.
Our New and Noteworthy page will tell you what's in M3. It doesn't mention classes or the bytes type, which I've written about in my weekly posts, because those features weren't finished in time. They'll be included in Milestone 4, and I doubt they'll be the only language enhancements we add. (The official list of M4 contents hasn't been made yet.)
Matt
"I doubt they'll be the only language enhancements we add."
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that RPG'ers really appreciate about their language is an ENDyyy statement that explicitly marries up with its partner. (Optionally, you can use a generic END statement just as we do in EGL.) What a terrific addition to EGL this would be!
Examples from RPG:
ENDCS
End a CASxx group
ENDDO
End a DO, DOU, DOUxx, DOW, or DOWxx group
ENDFOR
End a FOR group
ENDIF
End an IF or IFxx group
ENDMON
End a MONITOR group
ENDSL
End a SELECT group
And again, an "END" can be used in place of any of these for those who prefer it.
In EGL you might (optionally) use:
end-case
end-while
end-if
end-for
end-try
end-function
end-delegate
end-record
end-library
end-handler
end-service
end-program
..and so on.
Yes, we nest our code in free-format RPG but it is still all about clarity and an ENDyyy statement that indicates its partner adds clarity.
This is an area where -- for those of us who use both languages daily -- the syntax of RPG is clearly superior to EGL.
It wouldn't make much difference for the outer-most wrappers (such as "handler" or "service") but it makes a huge readability difference for the "if", "for", "case", "while", "try". I challenge you to take some business logic in EGL and look at it both ways. Which one is easier to follow?
--Dan
Hi Dan. Thanks for the idea. The best way to make suggestions like this is to open a bug against EDT with severity=enhancement and component=Language. Or use this handy URL https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/enter_bug.cgi?product=EDT;bug_severity=enhancement;component=Language
ReplyDeleteNah. It was just a conversation starter. I know the chances of such a thing making it into EGL fall between slim and none.
ReplyDelete--Dan
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