[Info-vax] Compatibility and 64-bit

[David Froble]

Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2015-03-14 23:59:22 +0000, David Froble said:

>> As someone who write a bunch of stuff using Basic, but who also plays 
>> around with data in string descriptors, I can see some nasty surprises 
>> coming if backward compatibility is abandoned.
> 
> Which is part of why — if things are looking forward, and not backward — 
> descriptor support needs to get a whole lot better and simpler, which 
> might well end up with the APIs and the descriptors and the rest 
> becoming objects.  Both Windows and OS X have provided OO APIs for most 
> of the system frameworks and tools — think itemlists in terms of 
> flexibility, but with no glue code needed.

About the string descriptors ....

I use them as labels in I/O buffers.  Modify the location (pointer) and 
length.  Any changes to the existing string descriptors I use will be a 
problem, as far as I can see.