[Info-vax] Learning VMS application programming

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Thursday, 4 September 2014 13:00:24 UTC+1, Bill Gunshannon  wrote:
> In article <121305eb-fe10-4a95-95bd-d1d0159c102b at googlegroups.com>,
> 
> 	johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk writes:
> 
> > 
> 
> > 
> 
> > If it worked back then, it will likely still work today. Unlike some 
> 
> > other operating systems, VMS has an excellent track record in 
> 
> > maintaining application-level compatibility across the decades.
> 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 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 can guess, but woldn't agree with
> 
> you.  There really are very few OSes that have been around for decades.
> 
> 
> 
> bill
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
> 
> billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
> 
> University of Scranton   |
> 
> Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

One example might be UNIX pre Single UNIX Specification.

E.g. BSD4.x vs System V R(something) vs V7, circa 1985, where they
couldn't even agree on what the call to fd = open(name ...) was.

There is at least one other multi-decade option, where the OS API of
choice sometimes changes radically from release to release.