[Info-vax] VSI: "Official 8.4-1H1 Launch"

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <mkqudh$s1c$1 at dont-email.me>, "Robert A. Brooks"
<FIRST.LAST at vmssoftware.com> writes: 

> If there is any portion of VMS that is going to be rewritten
> in a new language for the purposes of removing the requirement
> of the original language, it would be stuff that's written in Ada.
> 
> That said, we recognize the importance of Ada for many of our customers,
> so we will have an answer at some point (and I have no idea when that point will be).

Is there a list of compilers which VSI plans to support?  Is there a 
list which they plan to support better, which means supporting the 
latest standard completely within, say, two years of publication?

VAX FORTRAN was the gold standard of compilers.  It was Fortran77.  The
VMS Fortran95 compiler is also good.  Unfortunately, that's the latest
supported standard.  While I am very much "old school" regarding Fortran
programming, I do use new stuff if a) it is better (it usually is) and
b) it is something I need.  With regard to the latter, Fortran90 brought
in a lot, and Fortran95 (a much smaller revision) brought in a few more
things.  Since then, I haven't looked at the standards in detail.  Once,
however, I ran across something which is possible in Fortran95 but in an
ugly-workaround sort of way, which is elegantly solved in a later
standard.  I'm sure there are at least a few more things I could use, 
and even other old-school programmers can make use of many new features 
which I don't use.

I also remember, back when I was working in academia, that someone 
wanted to use the CXX compiler on VMS since it was better than the one 
on SUN.  (Really!  Standard code wouldn't compile with the SUN 
compiler.)

It would be nice if VSI could bring VMS compilers back to the cutting 
edge.

Make Steve Lionel an offer he cannot refuse.  :-)