[Info-vax] BASIC compiler in the hobbyist distribution

[seasoned_geek]

On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 5:53:40 PM UTC-5, David Froble wrote:
> 
> So, where do I find the IDEs that work with VAX/DEC Basic?

There have been a few hacks.

Color coding only with SlickEdit
https://www.slickedit.com/products/slickedit/languages-supported

Some kind of NetBeans plugin
http://compgroups.net/comp.os.vms/netbeans-basic-plugin/523219

There was supposedly an Eclipse plugin at one point but they might only support VAX COBOL now.

I do not remember the full setup, but you could configure LSE to do builds directing output to another buffer. Might have even been some support for jumping to the line number. Sadly I tended to use LSE as a better EDT with a syntax help key. I didn't dig deeply into the integration features with CMS/MMS. I vaguely remember showing how to use them in 

http://theminimumyouneedtoknow.com/app_book.html

but it has been quite a few years.
> 
> Frankly, I don't see where geek's argument is coming from.  HW is HW, it 
> does what it's told to do.  Unless I'm entirely clueless (as some have 
> claimed) I don't see where x86 (other than being a poorly implemented 
> but very well developed CPU) is any different from others.

It's not just the OS which gives up times measured in decades, it's the hardware. Once migrated to x86 up times will be measured in weeks (especially with blades instead of rack mounts) or at best months. Yes, each of you can find ONE x86 system somewhere which was in a perfect environment and defied all odds. Those are statistical anomalies, not the norm.

Vendors are finally starting to talk about the failure rate. Page 17 in this document is interesting.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/isby/lenovopartnernetwork.com/upload/1/docs/1p2-2p-portfolio-positioning-client-pres.pdf

I say it is interesting because they scope it to 4 hour failures or more. No numbers provided about those "random reboots". What is even more interesting is that no x86 vendor is touting up-times. Marketing has ceased pushing quality. They now are defining it as being the lowest percentage of 4+ hour failures instead of 4+ years of contiguous up time.

Yes, you can point to special radiation/EMP/etc hardened versions of x86 made for some satellites. So what? It's the cheap pieces of doo-doo going into the racks and blades.

For many years after the last PDP 11 was made, perhaps north of a decade after, CAT had one factory floor (possibly more, but I only know people that worked at one) which had its milling/cutting/drilling/other equipment controlled by PDP equipment. There was simply no reason to replace something which did not fail.

> Sometimes JOAT is good.  At other times maybe not.  Is it ordained that 
> VMS must grow beyond what it does well now?  I'm not so sure.  Sometimes 
> people need a good back office (your term, not mine) server that does 
> it's job well.
>
> I don't believe that the decline of VMS had anything to do with it's 
> capabilities.  Instead try DEC's embrace of Unix and weendoze, Compaq's 
> lack of resolve, and HP's neglect.  Then there was dropping Alpha, and 
> selecting the itanic.  A long string of bad decisions.  Can any 
> customers be blamed for thinking the ship was sinking, and seeking 
> lifeboats?
> 

Let us point out yet another domino effect from the ill-advised "pursuit of open".

Microsoft paid marketing places, probably even Gartner, to declare "Open good, Proprietary bad". They also paid to have these same marketing types declare weendoze, one of the most proprietary operating systems on the planet, as "open".

The genetic missfits in charge of DEC decision making at the time decided to jettison DIBOL because as DIgital's Business Oriented Language and therefore now that horrible "proprietary".

A very large number of places were running this and still are running it today. The current owners of DIBOL have been focusing on the OpenSource and DOT-NOT worlds so the VMS support has not had much effort. If you life in America this language still touches your life in some way. 

If you stayed in one of the properties owned by a major hotel chain your reservation was processed by it even if you booked on-line. You might have even stayed/purchased a timeshare managed by that language.

A major food services/distributor runs their business with it. You may have placed an order with them or ate at a business they services without even knowing this bad proprietary language controlled everything.

Let us not forget most of the credit unions in the country have back end systems written in this language, despite what you see on the desk. Even if you don't bank at a Credit Union you probably used one of their ATMs without even thinking about it.

A massive pharmacy company with TV ads and everything has been using it for many many years as well.

The point of this is the PowerHouse story is about to play out all over again. The current owner of the language is focusing on the OpenSource tools and DOT-NOT stuff while the VMS side languishes. A large number of deeply entrenched VMS customers will be forced to migrate from the platform.