[Info-vax] PC/VT Keyboarrd Mapping

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-06-27 19:33:40 +0000, John Reagan said:

> Common enough that there was work to make sure the native RTLs and 
> translated RTLs cooperated.  The Fortran RTLs share LUN information for 
> example.

But that's an instance of the "same" RTL translated, and not a 
completely different RTL?   I'd kind of expect that case to work.

Now if I had code using VSI Clang LLVM RTL C11, I'm not so sure I'd 
expect that to interoperate with other translated code using a 
translated VAX C RTL and native Compaq C RTL circa C90 mixed in for the 
most complete code conflagration.

Skewing somewhat away from blanket upward-compatibility and making new 
code easier to write and to maintain is preferable, though that'll be 
unpopular with some existing code in the short term, but offset by 
better support, features and stability with the newer RTL over the mid- 
and longer-term.   As an example of this stalled migration, getting 
folks off of VAX C should not still be going on.  Folks can either fix 
the ancient application code, or stay on the ancient release where that 
code best belongs.   Do I like fixing crufty old code?  No.  But 
getting that old code off VAX C made the code vastly more stable.

> I'm guessing that most folks really don't want to toss ALL the baggage. 
>  Go and do
> 
> $ DEFINE/SYSTEM/EXEC DECC$UNIX_LEVEL 90
> 
> and sit back and wait for the phone calls to start. I don't think even 
> the C compiler will work with that turned on.

Tried that knob some years ago.   Those switches are much like playing 
minesweeper.  Various routines blow up within (formerly) running code.  
That's also part of why I utterly despise that mechanism, as some of 
those errors can be quite subtle when you're off app-stacking and 
somebody wants one of those knobs and somebody else has an adverse 
reaction.  But then I (again) realize that basename() is utterly borked 
when passed OpenVMS filenames, and wonder why I even bother.



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