[Info-vax] source control and semantics (Re: Why so much Unix envy?)

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Saturday, 13 September 2014 14:13:06 UTC+1, Stephen Hoffman  wrote:
> On 2014-09-13 01:49:23 +0000, Craig A. Berry said:
> 
> 
> 
> > Actually most modern version control tools do not treat the source as 
> 
> > plain text because at the most fundamental level they don't treat it as 
> 
> > text at all: it's just arbitrary content....
> 
> > <http://hgbook.red-bean.com/read/handling-repository-events-with-hooks.html>
> 
> > 
> 
> > And also note that you can typically ignore whitespace-only changes 
> 
> > when looking through history with such options as "git diff 
> 
> > --ignore-space-change".
> 
> 
> 
> Yep.  Piping the incoming source code through a pretty-printer during 
> 
> the version-control check-in process is common practice.
> 
> 
> 
> It'd also be handy to have the project's preferred source code format 
> 
> available via your preferred IDE or editor, too.  Yes, as well as 
> 
> whatever format the particular programmer prefers to use.  Xcode 
> 
> doesn't have innate features that provide this, but there are Xcode 
> 
> extensions that allow you to selectively reformat the source code, and 
> 
> that really helps even when you're just initially entering the source 
> 
> code.  Eclipse or NetBeans also undoubtedly have source code formatters 
> 
> available.   You can go nuts here with emacs and vim, too. 
> 
> <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/149558/recommended-vim-plugins-for-c-coding> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Combine this with continuous integration and build bots and related, 
> 
> and things can get much more interesting than is common in classic VMS 
> 
> environments.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

So is there a way forward for modern software development on VMS then?

On the one hand there's the Eclipse (and friends) fan club (which is
fine by me) but over in another thread recently the received wisdom
is that the prospects for a revived "VMS desktop" are limited.

Is VMS sw development therefore staying in (retreating to?) the
character-cell era, or is there some miracle which allows the
deployment of some subset of modern/GUI sw tools on VMS even in
the absence of a plausible complete desktop?

I guess there's maybe the "edit(etc) here, compile/link/debug/run
there" option? Maybe?

There were some commercial products in this area too, not too long
ago. Not sure of current status, or of relevance in the rest of
the world outside the greater USA...

Anything else? What works well already, if anything? What else
might be interesting for VSI or others (including "the community")
to work on?