[Info-vax] Learning VMS application programming

[JF Mezei]

On 14-09-04 08:00, Bill Gunshannon wrote:

> Just out of curioisty, what OS that has been around for decades do you
> you think hasn't maintained "an excellent track record in maintaining
> application-level compatibility"? 

I'd have to say Windows with multiple rewrites of its APIs, and MACos
which "morphed" into OS-X. The two have similarities in that DOS/Windows
morphed into Windows-NT as its core OS, while the MAC OS morphed into a
variant of FreeBSD as its core.

Also, even during the MacOS era, there were some big changes (for
instance the sound driver changed and didn't support apps written prior
to the change).

One would note however that VMS started its GUI existence with VWS and
then Morphed int Motif which was totally incompatible. (I miss the lunar
lander program !)