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

[Simon Clubley]

On 2015-06-15, Hans Vlems <hvlems at freenet.de> wrote:
> Op maandag 15 juni 2015 13:27:11 UTC+2 schreef Simon Clubley:
>> [snip]
>> VMS descriptors are a really good idea I agree, but unfortunately
>> they are operating system specific and (as you point out) one of
>> the most common languages in use, C, has no builtin support for
>> them.
>> 
>
> Quite right, there aren't that many languages out there with native
> support for item_lists (BLISS probably being the only one).
> But it is not very difficult to set up a couple of supporting functions in C
> that allow easy access to them. A lot easier than in Pascal I feel.
> Hans
> or descriptors

When I wrote that, I wasn't thinking specifically about itemlists, but
was responding to John's reference to using descriptors as a parameter
passing mechanism instead of (for example) null terminated strings.

Itemlists are a whole other thing which need thinking about... :-)

To respond to one of your later messages, with some higher level
languages (for example Ada), you get the equivalent safety of
descriptors (and more) because the language imposes it's own checks.

These languages also have higher level mechanisms so you don't have
to do C-level copying of memory blocks around but can instead use a
higher (and safer) level of abstraction.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world