[Info-vax] DCL's flaws (both scripting and UI)

[Paul Sture]

On 2015-01-20, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
> On 2015-01-19 22:53:11 +0000, John Reagan said:
>
>> I'd rather not mung up DCL with aggregate returns (don't call them 
>> objects please) but rather say you should use Perl or Python for such 
>> larger tasks.
>
> Which gets back to looking at how to provide an alternative or a more 
> modern scripting language than what DCL provides.
>
> So get Perl, Python or Lua into the base distro, and with a decent set 
> of libraries, and — like what is offered for DCL — allow an easy path 
> for direct invocation.

I never thought I'd find myself saying this, but Javascript might be
a good idea.  Its use has expanded well beyond putting fancy bits into
web pages and can now be used for things like MongoDB.  I'm thinking
of how to make VMS an attractive proposition for a larger audience
here.

Incidentally, when you first introduced us to Lua, I pointed a few
folks at it, and a seasoned Javascript chap remarked on the similarity
of the two languages, saying that transitioning between the two
should be very easy.

> With embedding and scripting, where those languages support it, too.
>
> For better or worse, DCL and Macro32 are the common programming 
> choices, having the benefit of being installed everywhere.



-- 
An invention needs to make sense in the world in which it's finished,
not the world in which it's started.                  -- Ray Kurzweil