[Info-vax] Programming languages on VMS

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 2/7/2018 3:31 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2018-02-07 19:14:02 +0000, Arne Vajhj said:
> 
>> On 2/7/2018 2:10 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>>
>>
>>>    OpenVMS lacks a REST framework and the libwww port was problematic 
>>> when I last looked at it.   A REST framework would be a nice addition 
>>> to OpenVMS, though.  At a lower — though not necessarily simpler — 
>>> level, an OpenVMS framework that deals with IPv4 and IPv6, with DNS, 
>>> and with TLS encryption and authentication would be really handy.
>>
>> I think you have all that if you are willing to use stuff that start 
>> with J.
>>
>> :-)
> 
> Haven't looked at Julia.    https://julialang.org   Seems a very 
> interesting language, though.   Probably didn't mean J++ nor J# there, 
> though.   Maybe you meant JavaScript?  That certainly has support for 
> this sort of thing, though there's not a whole lot of server-side 
> JavaScript support available on OpenVMS.    Wouldn't mind JSON, but 
> that's not executable in the absence of parser bugs.   Or did you mean 
> Java?   Because Perl, Python, php, JavaScript, Lua and various other 
> choices all don't require dealing with Oracle, for those folks that 
> would prefer not to.  Nor contending with the Oracle Java support 
> policies that are now in place, for the folks using the free versions. 
> Java 9 is ending public patch support next month and Java 10 by the end 
> of this year, for instance.   Which means many folks will be staying on 
> Java 8, if they use Java.   Or paying Oracle for patches.   Or upgrading 
> fairly quickly.   But then for the folks that are increasingly using 
> Java or some of these other programming languages, justifying the choice 
> of OpenVMS can be interesting.

For Linux/Windows/Solaris Oracle is switching to a  model with:
* free support of latest version
* paid support available for older versions (LTS versions only)

So yes people will need to pick one of:
* run without support
* upgrade frequently to get free support
* pay Oracle for support of older version
* find another vendor (IBM, Azul etc.) and get support from them

For VMS it will depend on what policy HP will chose.

I would expect most VMS systems in production to have a support
contract with VSI or HP.

Arne