[Info-vax] Databases, LDAP and the limitations of RMS-file-based authentication

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <f4794e74-fcdb-481a-a648-f0ec57129482 at googlegroups.com>,
	John Reagan <xyzzy1959 at gmail.com> writes:
> On Wednesday, December 24, 2014 3:18:02 PM UTC-5, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> 
> 
>> > I mean, I just figured there is / was this thing called the VMS calling 
>> > standard, that every language (except for C) seems to respect, and so 
>> > one should be able call code from any VMS language.
>> 
>> C, Bliss and Macro all comply with the VMS calling standard, and can 
>> more easily do certain things; things that BASIC, Fortran and COBOL 
>> just aren't so fond of.
> 
> The Calling Standard actually has few requirements on how arguments are passed
> (by immediate value, by reference, by descriptor are all valid mechanisms).
> 
> Traditionally the compilers only have one or two schemes to accept arguments and
> then have additional directives, etc. to generate other schemes when calling other routines.
> 
> I'll wager the best language for different schemes is the one that Hoff keeps forgetting... Pascal... :)

While I think Pascal is great and still use it a lot (and love playng with
Pascal Compilers) it is yet another example of a language that was tasked
with doing things it was not deisigned for (kinda like C :-).  Maybe Pascal
users should actually be using Modula.

> 
> 
>> 
>> Use the right tools.  BASIC deals with strings very well, and C, not so 
>> much.  C has advantages in other areas -- for tasks where I would once 
>> have used Macro32 or sometimes Bliss, C usually works.
>> 
> 
> The best string languages would be BASIC, COBOL, and Pascal (in that order).
 
What!!  What about SNOBOL?       :-)

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>