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

[John Reagan]

On Monday, June 15, 2015 at 3:28:48 PM UTC-4, Hans Vlems wrote:
> John, I forgot about %descr and friends in pascal and I won't dare start an argument with you about languages....
> That said, what I had in mind were C and pascal as in the minds of k+r and wirth, compared to bliss. The latter has a descriptor base type which the others don't. You've got to set up your own structures and pointers to them. Which is just a tad easier in C imho.
> Hans
> 
> ...wearing asbestos protection ;)


C yes, but Wirth and Pascal has no concept of the parameter passing MECHANISM, just the SEMANTICS.  Standard Pascal is too high-level to worry about physical representations.  Vendors were left to add in whatever was needed for their environment.

BLISS has no types at all so it doesn't know much about descriptors other than building them for various string literals.