[Info-vax] Programming languages on VMS

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 2/1/2018 12:36 PM, DaveFroble wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 1/31/2018 2:53 PM, seasoned_geek wrote:
>>> With COBOL SORT you can even sort on values which do not natively 
>>> exist on the input file.
>>
>> There are libraries for sorting large disk files for other languages.
>>
>> But having it coming with the compiler is a benefit.
> 
> Ahh, hmm, that's an interesting perspective.
> 
> Yes, there have been times I've implemented the "stupid bubble sort" in 
> programs, for rather small number of items.  I've also invoked the VMS 
> sort utility from within programs, both in memory sort, and file sort.
> 
> With a relational database and SQL I can easily specify the ordering of 
> a dataset.
> 
> I'd guess my question is, if the OS, or the environment, or whatever 
> supplies the needed capability, what use is there for each language to 
> supply their own sorting, most likely incompatible with each other?  
> Just seems to me that sorting is something to be universal, not language 
> specific.


If it had been a widely wanted feature then I guess that other
languages would have implemented it.

But my guess is that most do what you also thought of and
use a database instead of a flat file to avoid all the sorting.

But it is a feature.

Arne