[Info-vax] Programming languages on VMS

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/24/2018 4:23 PM, DaveFroble wrote:
> Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2018-01-24, DaveFroble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>> John Reagan wrote:
>>>> There is a new Fortran frontend for LLVM named 'flang'.
>>>> https://github.com/flang-compiler/flang
>>>>
>>
>> That was one I didn't know about, thanks.
>>
>>> John, you know a bit about languages.  Let me ask a question.
>>>
>>> I'll preface the question by admitting that I view much of the "new 
>>> languages" as some people who just want to "re-invent the wheel".
>>>
>>> Do the "new languages" actually present more and better capabilities?
>>
>> Would you write a safety critical system in Basic ?
> 
> DEC Basic?  Absolutely.
> 
> Keep in mind, any language "could" have problems.  I've seen a few 
> issues thru the years, but, VAX/DEC/Compaq/HP Basic is pretty bullet proof.
> 
> Perhaps the result of not getting "change of the month" stuff?
> 
> Then there is the details of just what is a "safety critical system".

My guess is that Simon were:
* not talking about bugs in compiler/RTL but about the languages
   ability to prevent programming errors
* assuming "safety critical" as "a programming bug may cause somebody
   to die"

Arne