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

[Tim Sneddon]

invalid <address at is.invalid> wrote:
> You guys need to understand z/Arch and z/OS are built entirely around
> assembler. There is *no* direct system interface except in assembler and
> PL/X. And it is only from around z/OS 1.10 (2.3 just came out and 1.13 was
> the last of the 1. series) where there was a C compiler capable of running
> with no runtime and being able to support inline assembler to call systems
> services since C cannot do it directly. And it is only in the very recent
> past IBM has started to try to create header files for all the systems
> services (nothing has been released yet) and we only know it by
> accident. But it's a huge job and far from complete. When it is done, then
> it will be physically possible and feasible to write compilers in C. But no
> reasonable person would suggest they would be willing to take a chance on
> breaking their enterprise clients applications just so they can say their
> compilers were written in C.  
> 

Really?  Enterprise PL/I is most definitely not written in assembler.  Same
for C and C++.  Language Environment provides plenty of interfaces for
accessing system services.  LE even has a compiler writers interface guide.
The run-time library for Enterprise PL/I is also not written in assembler,
although that seems to have been a more gradual change over the last 20
years.  From what I can tell it is largely written in C and relies heavily
on C services and behaviour.

Enterprise PL/I was first released in 1992, so you can look back to the 80's
for a compiler that was not written in assembler and ran on z/OS/MVS/etc.
IBM has been in the dark-ages of computing for a very long time when it comes
to their mainframe, even worse than VMS has been.

To behave like you are the only person here who knows anything about z/OS is
ridiculous.  To come to a VMS-specific forum and spout some of the nonsense
that has left your keyboard is also bordering on outrageous.  Why aren't
you on an IBM forum having these arguments rather than here?  if you didn't
want your claims to be refuted, you came to the wrong place...

Regards, Tim.