[Info-vax] Bliss was Re: Learning VMS application programming

[John Reagan]

On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 9:05:50 AM UTC-4, Bob Koehler wrote:

>    Macro-11 and Macro-32 I can understand.  But Macro-10 was one of
>    the most different I've worked with, out of several.

The assembler or the instruction set?

The assembler's ability to have code literals looks confusing to new reader.   It had lambda routines years before Python or C++.  Plus using "dot" in those nested literals often gave you results you didn't expect.  (but then again, it is an assembler - it is supposed to have sharp edges!)

For me, I always found it funny that the instruction set had a jump instruction (spelled JUMP) that did not jump.  I never understood why that form (other than just simplicity to implement in hardware).