RPG IV The Power of Prototyping
The prototyping support added to RPG IV to enable User defined procedures offers many other "hidden" benefits. For example it can be used to allow the compiler to check your program calls. Were the right number of parameters passed, and of the right data type ? Prototyping can do all this for you and much more. Prototyping also opens the door to at wealth of APIs on your AS/400. For example, the C function library is shipped with every AS/400 - so a whole variety of functions are right there on your system just waiting for you to use them! We will show you how to use the C math library, generate random numbers, access the IFS, and much more!

Jon Paris   has been involved in the Data Processing industry for nearly 30 years. His career has covered the spectrum from Operations, to Compiler design. He currently works as a Senior Consultant for Hal North America Limited. Jon's S/3X career started when he fell in love with the System/38 while working as a consultant. This love affair ultimately led him to joining IBM. Contracted by the Toronto Laboratory, in 1987, to work on the S/36 and S/38 COBOL compilers, Jon became involved with the AS/400 and in particular COBOL/400. Invited to join IBM full-time in 1988, Jon continued to work on COBOL/400. In early 1989 Jon was transferred to the Languages Architecture and Planning Group, with particular responsibility for the COBOL and RPG languages. In this role he played a major role in the definition of the new RPG IV language. In 1994 he moved to his current position where he is involved in producing educational and other support materials and services related to AS/400 programming languages and development tools, such as CODE/400 and VRPG. Jon is a frequent speaker at User Group meeting and conferences around the world.