[Info-vax] Calling standards, was: Re: Byte range locking - was Re: Oracle on VMS

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-11-25 16:45, David Froble wrote:
> Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2016-11-25 13:38, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>> In article <o175ok$2f0$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist
>>> <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
>>>> On 2016-11-23 18:09, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>> True.  I just looked in my RSTS manual and the RSX executive doesn't
>>>>> have .ANYTHING directives at all.  Now I have to go look at some of
>>>>> my other manuals and see just who else used null terminated strings.
>>>>> UNIVAC-1100 did not.  It, too, had descriptors.  I have a number of
>>>>> other assembler manuals be interesting to know just how many used
>>>>> null termination as a common method.  I know it was fairly common
>>>>> in Z80 code i worked with even before a C compiler became common.
>>>>
>>>> In most processors, using a NUL to indicate the end of a string
>>>> makes it
>>>> efficient to write the code. So you'll probably see it on almost any
>>>> architecture where people want to deal with dynamic length strings.
>>>>
>>>> The other alternative is to keep a count, but that uses more memory,
>>>> and
>>>> in some cases adds a bit of complexity, which people often try to avoid
>>>> (programmers being lazy and all).
>>>
>>> Memory is cheap!  Considering other coding practices today that bloat
>>> code,
>>> a byte count of a string is pale by comparison.
>>
>> Today that is true for most cases. Historically, not so much...
>>
>>     Johnny
>>
>
> Quite right!  But when you learn that building airbags into automobiles
> can drastically reduce the need for reconstructive facial surgery in the
> event of a crash, you stop building card without seat belts and airbags,
> right?  So why not do away with the use of null terminated strings?

You're not going to hear any arguments from me against that... :-)

Now we just need to rewrite a few billion lines of code. :-)

   Johnny