[Info-vax] Status of the PostgreSQL port?

[John Reagan]

On Monday, June 29, 2015 at 12:25:56 PM UTC-4, David Froble wrote:
> Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> > On 2015-06-29 02:47:11 +0000, BillPedersen said:
> > 
> >> ...I look forward to continuing to work with them and VSI Engineering 
> >> as we get this project moving again.
> > 
> > Or maybe looking at the lack of C11, at what SSIO and the jackets and 
> > the other limitations of the current CRTL are intended to address -- and 
> > how could I ever forget my old friend, the spectacularly modular and 
> > infinitely supportable and maintainable use of logical names as an RTL 
> > feature control mechanism? -- and just nuke it all from orbit.   Deploy a 
> > new and modern C RTL VSIC$CRTL, either the existing C bits rethought and 
> > rewritten and re-architected, or possibly based on the musl C library, 
> > and schedule the existing DECC$CRTL for deprecation.
> 
> While I detest the language in general, I feel that I've got to agree 
> with Steve on this issue, and further, I have strong opinions on how 
> such options should be handled.
> 
> In every program I write in Basic, the following can be found:
> 
> OPTION SIZE = ( INTEGER WORD , REAL DOUBLE )

BASIC is very good at providing compiler source options to match the command line options.

> 
> Do I count on some logical to indicate I want Word integers and D_Float? 
>   No freeking way!

The DECC$ logicals do not control that behavior.  They control RUN-TIME behavior, not COMPILE-TIME compiler options.

> 
> Do I count on compiler switches to use Word integers and D_Float?  No 
> freeking way!

True that there isn't a "#pragma float" or such to encode such requirement in the source code.  However, programs usually compile with build instructions (a makefile, a build.com, etc.).  That isn't just a C-ism.  You see the same thing with most the other languages on OpenVMS that don't have source options that correspond to the command line options.

> 
> A programmer must know what he's doing, and control everything about the 
> programs he writes.  To depend upon something in the local environment 
> to control such things is much worse than stupid.  It's reckless and 
> negligence.  As soon as that program gets build in a different 
> environment, things don't go downhill, things are in a free fall drop.
> 
If you have run-time requirements (certain CRTL behaviors, certain minimum quotas, etc.), your program can check for those at startup (some CRTL feature logicals require that you set them in a LIB$INITIALIZE routine).  However, features like SET PROC/PARSE=EXTENDED which might impact the invocation, you have to set on your own.