[Info-vax] DCL Integer Overflow

[IanD]

On Tuesday, July 4, 2017 at 12:27:09 AM UTC+10, John Reagan wrote:
> On Monday, July 3, 2017 at 9:50:18 AM UTC-4, David Froble wrote:
> > Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> > > On 7/2/2017 10:14 PM, David Froble wrote:
> > > 
> > >  > I guess my question is "why is anyone using integers of such magnitude
> > >  > in DCL?"
> > > 
> > > When we support larger than 2TB disks, there will be issues with
> > > 
> > > write sys$output f$getdvi( "big disk", "maxblock" )
> > > 
> > > There is no good way to fix this (and problems like this one), other
> > > than defining a new item code that returns a string.
> > > 
> > 
> > Well, Ok, but, when I want to see anything about the disks, I've got a symbol 
> > "SYD" that is "SHOW DEVICE D", and I'm guessing that invokes a non-DCL program, 
> > which could support larger than 32-bit integers.
> > 
> > I guess it is because I see "DCL" as "Digital COMMAND Language", not "Digital 
> > PROGRAMMING Language".
> 
> Can I save this reply for the next discussion about replacing DCL with a scripting language like Python or even BASIC? :) :) :)

lol

While I like Python a lot because it keeps growing and every person and their dog writes Python binders for everything, I think functional languages are even better if one is wanting to harden production environments. No side effects in terms of function calls just bolsters production resilience

Grandfather DCL, Bring Python up to date on VMS (V3), polish off the rest of the calls that are not quite complete and we are on our way to bettering VMS. 

Look at functional languages too, I think they are going to grow in use as side-effects become more and more undesirable going forward