[Info-vax] BASIC compiler in the hobbyist distribution

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-05-26 16:59:07 +0000, David Froble said:

> seasoned_geek wrote:
> 
>> The more OpenSource is ported to OpenVMS the fewer customers VMS
>> (open or otherwise) will have. This is a historical fact most people
>> seem to choose to ignore. Before OpenSource was ported to OpenVMS it
>> was banned from Black Hat conferences. After OpenSource got ported to
>> OpenVMS, providing the same 8-lane wide security breaches fake
>> operating systems have it was welcomed back with open arms.
> 
> This indicates to me that the hackers are targeting the open source 
> stuff more than the OS itself.

Windows and related packages are getting rather more secure, so the 
attacks are working on the stuff that hasn't been locked down; the 
add-ons.

> Could be a valid argument against open source.  But, really, one size 
> doesn't fit all.  There could be some decent open source stuff.

There is good open source, and there is utter crap closed-source.

> Unless you were running ROSS/V you were not running any Basic 
> interpreter on VAX that I'm aware of.  Basic Plus is an interpreter.  
> On VAX Basic they implemented "incremental compilation".  Ok, someone 
> point out that that that is pretty much what an interpreter does.  My 
> understanding it that it's not.

The distinctions among compilers and interpreters and JITs really 
aren't as interesting (at least to me, and I'd suspect most other 
folks) as whether I can better incrementally test and see what's going 
on with the code.   Near-continuous compilation and playgrounds — gonzo 
debuggers, with very simple interfaces — and a decent IDE can make even 
a compiler much more interactive, for instance.

>> During my PDP days, the interpreter was all there was (for a while).
>> It allowed quite a bit of security though since we could have menu
>> programs which chained to various line numbers in other programs.
>> Anyone who tried to run such programs from the command line or
>> whatever, without chaining to one of the line numbers which actually
>> did something just saw a program which exited without actually doing
>> anything.
> 
> VAX / DEC Basic still allows, as far as I know, chaining to a line 
> number in a program.

A more recent analog to that is an RPC, and there are various options 
available.  OpenVMS even has one or two of these available.

If you're depending on invoking some code by line number as a form of 
security and given the "attacker" is already at the command line and 
able to test commands, well, that's not a very robust defense.  Now if 
those line numbers were image-activation-specific cryptographic random 
numbers and the address space was randomly shuffled around, that might 
be a bit better.

>> Yes, I would like to see the BASIC interpreter added back into the
>> product. It was nice. Whenever you had a tricky piece of code to work
>> on which was part of a much larger application, you could open up the
>> interpreter and kick around 50 to a few hundred lines of code until
>> the thing worked. THEN you put it in your real module.
> 
> Or, you could use the debugger ....
> 
> Yeah, both can be helpful.

These have evolving into IDEs, and what Xcode calls a "playground" is 
something to look at, in this context.  Or continuous compilation, as 
that lets you test your code right in the editor and invoke and debug 
it, without having to exit your editing session and explicitly compile 
and link and debug.    Again, a good IDE is really handy here.

>> DCL needs to remain DCL.
> 
> I'm happy with DCL.

You're happy because you haven't found something better.    But then 
there's no reasonable way to kill DCL either, so it'll be around as 
long as OpenVMS.

>> If they, whoever 'they' are, wish to add another shell language, they
>> need to roll from scratch based on the current ANSI standard a REXX
>> interpreter + compiler. VMS needs to once again target the mainframe
>> customers instead of trying to swim in the bottom of the sewer with
>> the x86 crowd.

Rexx?   Can't say that reaching back to the 1970s and to IBM mainframes 
was something I'd particularly considered.  No UTF-8 support, and 
adding that can be involved.   But if you do want Rexx, NetRexx 
apparently compiles and runs on the JVM.

As for the planned x86-64 release of OpenVMS, how is your port off of 
OpenVMS going, seasoned_geek?  Gonna keep those Itanium and older boxes 
going for a while, while porting the applications off of the OpenVMS 
platform?

> VMS can be used by all types of customers.  As a computer.  Not so much 
> as a user interface.

As a back-office server, yes, OpenVMS can work for some folks and 
particularly for folks with existing OpenVMS applications.    One 
challenge for VSI involves trying to grow beyond that base.


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