[Info-vax] Python on VMS

[gérard Calliet]

Le 16/01/2019 à 15:10, Stephen Hoffman a écrit :
> On 2019-01-16 12:55:24 +0000, Neil Rieck said:
> 
>> Comment-1: I have been installing run-time libraries into VAX, Alpha 
>> and Itanium for 31-years and have never experienced any breakage with 
>> compiled programs. Many of these systems just continue to run forever.
> 
> I have. Some of the more famous examples are Adobe Display Postscript 
> support (removed), the EV6 load-locked mess (bad GEM code generation), 
> OpenSSL (API and encryption changes), and callable BACKUP (changed 
> itemcodes).
> 
> The changes necessary for the password hash support will be another 
> example.
> 
> There _will_ be more of these incompatibilities, if VSI is going to 
> continue bringing OpenVMS forward.
We know your opinion about that. But it seems you are saying:
- VSI has to do a lot of things to be competitive, and so they'll have 
to forget compatibiliy,
- VSI will not be competitive for a very long time.
So "you have to do that" & "it will not be a success".

On the other side, *if* one of the most important qualities of VMS have 
been compatibility, which explains in part why VMS is good for long time 
live cycle applications, and *if* (you say it) the most important market 
now for VSI is the ones who are still on it, why abandon one of the 
qualities which explains there are still there?

As usual, the answer is: "it depends". For some segments of market 
compatibility is very important, for others it is a pain because of new 
needs. Perhaps you have the good general idea about not necessity of 
compatibility and a lot of general ideas about OS's but the renewal we 
observe with VMS is something not at all general.

Gérard Calliet
> 
>> Systems requiring a specific version of Python are just one careless 
>> upgrade away from failure.
> 
> Tools and apps are tied, and always have been.  More than a few folks 
> have forgotten to check in their tooling with their source code for 
> instance, which means rebuilding their long-working apps gets difficult.
> 
>> Comment-2: Python is "very powerful" with interfaces into almost 
>> everything including MySQL and MariaDB
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)
> 
> This is hardly surprising for folks that have been working across 
> platforms.  Python, Lua, Perl and other scripting tools all feature 
> database access, as well as a wealth of other routines for common 
> tasks.  This is part of why at least some of us have been pointing at 
> the unfortunate state of DCL as an issue on OpenVMS.   DCL is not the 
> pinnacle of a CLI.  It's competitively inadequate, at best.
> 
>> Comment-3: I started in computing by learning "interpreted BASIC" on 
>> an Apple2. Compiled languages (COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, BASIC, C, C++) 
>> on minicomputers changed everything for me. I am ending my career 
>> learning "interpreted Python" on udemy
> 
> The whole business changes, and the tools are changed and updated across 
> the spectrum.  The compiled languages available on other platforms—and 
> the available frameworks, development tools, and even the compilation 
> support and diagnostics—are well past what OpenVMS offers, too.  And 
> PyPy, Jython and IronPython all support JIT'ing Python code, so you can 
> also be running compiled Python code.  This is the world that OpenVMS is 
> competing in now.
>