[Info-vax] Pascal question

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/21/2019 8:46 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 1/21/2019 8:18 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 1/21/2019 4:57 PM, John Reagan wrote:
>>> Good point.  Just as soon as a real customer writes that on the back
>>> of a $100 bill, I'll get right on it.  I'll call STR$UPCASE for you.
>>> :)
>>
>> I know you have priorities.
>>
>> My thinking is just along the lines of:
>> * it will take some time until the VMS Pascal users start
>>    running their production on VMS x86-64.
>> * many improvements of Pascal would be a lot of work to
>>    implement and would certainly be a no go from a
>>    priority perspective
>> * but maybe just maybe it would make sense to release
>>    a new Pascal version with some easy stuff (a few
>>    bug fixes, a bunch of new predefined functions, a few
>>    extra PEN files) to show that VMS is on the move - throw
>>    us a few appetizers while we are waiting for the big meal
> 
> Well, that's one of the poorer ideas I've read today, even this year ...
> 
> You may be aware that John is rather busy insuring that languages needed 
> to port VMS to x86 are working correctly on x86, right?
> 
> Anything detracting from that slightly important task just might be 
> considered "poor judgement"?

I am sure John has a chain of command with qualified
people that will make the judgement.

But my thinking as I wrote is that it will take time until
VMS Pascal production systems are on x86-64. I don't know when,
but sometimes 2022-2024 seems likely to me. First it need to
exist and then customer needs to get confidence and then
migration need to be planned and executed. It all takes time.

That is a long time for customers not getting something.

Maybe it is worth investing a little bit of time in giving
the customers something with new features. To show that
VSI is delivering something.

I don't know. I am just thinking out loud.

Arne