[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[invalid]

On 2018-08-01, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 7/31/2018 4:18 PM, invalid wrote:
>> On 2018-07-29, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>> On 2018-07-29, invalid <address at is.invalid> wrote:
>>>> What should they have used to write a FORTRAN compiler in 1957 or 1966?
>>>> A COBOL compiler in 1959? A PL/I compiler in 1964?
>>>>
>>>
>>> High level languages were a _lot_ simpler back in those days. :-)
>> 
>> Maybe, but the point was there was no other choice of implementation
>> language in those days. And 50+ years later  we're still using those
>> languages (except for IBM FORTRAN, which is sadly lost in time at F77+)
>> now. Which is why the compilers are still mostly assembler. Except maybe for
>> C/C++ which may be heading towards self-hosting.
>
>
> Well - C and C++ seems to be the most widely used languages
> for compilers (at least compilers generating native code).

C and C++ have less than .1% market share on the mainframe. And they will
never catch on very much because they are broken, unsafe languages that are
too high level to be useful for writing systems software and too low level
to be used for writing applications. Much better choices beat C to it and
decades later nothing has changed. C is attractive to idiot CIOs who think
they can get cheap programmers but it's just a good way to break something.

If you want to argue based on what you know about other environments that's
all well and good. You're wasting our time with this approach. I work in
this environment and you guys don't. If you ask, I'll answer. If you say
something wrong and I'm not too busy to care, I'll point it out. If I don't
know I'll say so.