[Info-vax] Most popular application programming languages on VMS ?

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 1/9/19 1:28 PM, gérard Calliet wrote:
> Le 08/01/2019 à 15:19, Bill Gunshannon a écrit :
>> On 1/8/19 8:51 AM, abrsvc wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at 8:19:14 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> All this talk about programming languages has made me wonder what
>>>> the most popular application programming languages are on VMS, both
>>>> today and in the past.
>>>>
>>>> Since the language options are going to vary with application type
>>>> (you are not going to see a lot of scientific programming in COBOL
>>>> for example :-)), this is across the VMS base as a whole and not
>>>> across one specific section of it.
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone know the answer ?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Simon.
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
>>>> Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
>>>
>>> I can only talk about the ones for the sites that I support...
>>>
>>> The most common that I see are:
>>>
>>> FORTRAN
>>> COBOL
>>> C
>>> BASIC
>>>
>>> Others seen but not particularly actively used in new development:
>>>
>>> DIBOL
>>> MACRO-32
>>> PASCAL
>>>
>>
>> Don't forget Ada.  The VAX running VMS had one of the
>> first validated compilers and saw use pretty much from
>> the very first VAX to hit the streets.  I saw it in the
>> very early 80's.
>>
>> bill
>>
> +1
> 
> But I dont't know how many of them went to DEC Ada Alpha. THe few who 
> used GNAT Ada Itanium are no more here (said by Adacore, difficult to 
> evaluate because they have a political decision of stopping their 
> support for VMS).
> 
> It seems that thinking about a future for Ada on VMS involves being able 
> of addressing the complete set of needs: support and port (to x86)  of 
> all the VAX and Alpha Ada compiler (DEC Ada first, but there are another 
> Ada compiler for VAX/VMS), support and port (to x86) of GNAT Ada 
> Itanium, and creating an Ada compiler for VMS x86.
> 
> Everything is possible, and it seems it would be better to have a global 
> offer on this domain - everything is possible *if* it can make sense in 
> term of business, for sure.
> 
> To have an Ada compiler on VMS x86 it can be made by 2 different means:
> - gcc cross compiled from Linux - as we have made for our built for VMS 
> Itanium, => I'm not sure it is even possible, with issues of 
> compatibility in pushing a strange gcc idiomatic x86 image in a llvm world,
> - Adacore will have this year a prototype of Ada compiler using LLVM as 
> a back end ; we can plug this front end to the VMS LLVM back end => it 
> is the most rational idea, but we'll have to wait from Adacore, and 
> Adacore says llvm will never be their principal stream of development.
> 

Aren't Ada compilers still required to be validated? Isn't that
likely to be a work intensive and expensive proposition?  Is
there enough of a customer base to justify the time and expense?

bill