[Info-vax] completion status from LIB$SPAWN

[David Froble]

VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> In article <jnfan4$dr$1 at pcls6.std.com>, moroney at world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) writes:
>> Hein RMS van den Heuvel <heinvandenheuvel at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On Friday, April 27, 2012 10:34:33 AM UTC-4, David Froble wrote:
>>>> StGallen wrote:
>>> :
>>>> specifies success or failure.  Don't test the value, do a mask comparison, ie;
>>>>
>>>> If (Stat% And SS$_NORMAL)
>>>> Then Print "Success"
>>>> Else Print "Failure"
>>>> End If
>>> I beg to differ. That's disgusting code. 
>>> It may work, but does not does what it suggest.
>>> SS$_NORMAL is NOT a bitmask, it is a word value.
>>> That only works because you know its value is 1.
>>> If so, then IMHO it is better just write that: stat & 1
>>> Or use  STS$M_SUCCESS as mentioned earlier,
>>> Or use a 16-bit-word-compare.
>> Very true, and I see it all the time. I've learned to overlook/ignore it.
>> When I write code, I just use "1".
> 
> Sheesh...  C'mon, it's STS$M_SUCCESS.  This is VMS with 30 years+ history.
> You'd think people could/would be able to get it right by now.
> 
> FWIW, that BASIC stuff if fugly.
> 

"if" ??

"fugly" ??

I'm assuming that's not good, so I'd ask, what would you prefer?  Surely not the gibberish 
that is called "C".  I could meet you half way with Macro-32 ....

I know I'm biased, and so is everyone else in favor of what they're used to, but I find 
Basic to be more understandable than anything else, most likely because English is my only 
language.