[Info-vax] The Future of Programming Languages and Web browsers

[JC]

The major concept here is synchronous programming versus Asynchronous
(stateless) programming. I don't see much out there which fits the
synchronous bill although I hear that Microsoft Silverlight uses a
synchronous
model on the client side, whereas RUNBASIC is synchronous on the
server side.

As an ERP application developer schooled in character based
applications
(Which work very well but don't look very pretty), I am well aware
that
end customers are demanding "pretty" instead of good. This preference
even
extends to a growing customer rejection of GUI based rich client
technology
in favour of browser based applications. Such developments may not be
either
wise or sensible, however they do reflect current customer preference
trends,
particularly in the small to medium sized business marketplace.

I am intrigued by your comment ending in "BASIC?  Really?!?!?"

Please explain this. I'm not looking to get into a "programming
language" war
of words because we all have our reasons for preferring "A" over "B",
but I would be interested in understanding your apparent disdain for
BASIC.
I can see from some of your previous postings on this forum that you
are a
very accomplished current or ex- DEC/COMPAQ/HP software engineer. For
that
reason I would really be interested in your views.

I have been using what is currently referred to as HP Basic for the
last
fifteen years and have found it to be superb for ERP system
development
and maintenance. In a similar vein, I long ago became enamoured with
the
reliability of OpenVMS and its brilliantly fast and robust RMS data
management
facilities. It also doesn't hurt being able to avoid Malware
infestations
which plague the ever popular Windows environment.

John, thank you for your comments.

John Cookson



On Nov 18, 2:48 pm, "John Reagan" <johnrrea... at earthlink.net> wrote:
> "JC" <thecook... at gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:6ddf589c-5296-404f-8e1b-2966bbb4cfa7 at m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > Yesterday I stumbled across a product called RUNBASIC (From the
> > authors of LibertyBasic) and my immediate
> > thought was that this product demonstrates how programming for the web
> > browser environment should be handled.
>
> >http://runbasic.com/
>
> > Although RUNBASIC is relatively embryonic (and doesn't run on
> > OpenVMS), I would love to see HP develop this
> > concept for its own industrial strength BASIC language on OpenVMS. I
> > drool at the thought of developing web
> > applications without having to give up the benefits of synchronous
> > connection states and procedural constructs.
> > It would also be very nice having direct access to a quality data
> > management resource like RMS.
>
> > I would be interested to hear what seasoned OpenVMS programmers make
> > of this concept.
>
> Which "concept" are you talking about?  Yet another programming language
> with embedded builtins for screen and or web drawing?  Automatic HTML
> generation?  Built-in XML parser?  Nothing new here.  Other than the scare
> tactic about adding modules to Apache, etc.
>
> Plus from a language point of view, BASIC?  Really?!?!?
>
> John