[Info-vax] A DCL wish list of sorts...

[Simon Clubley]

On 2019-03-15, pcanagnostopoulos at gmail.com <pcanagnostopoulos at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday, March 15, 2019 at 9:13:16 AM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> 
>> In your proposed rewrite, what would you have changed ?
>> 
>> What new functionality would you have added ?
>> 
>
> My primary concern was efficiency, since that's what I was getting pressure about. I had written Cerberus, the VMS source control system, in DCL. I was writing VMSINSTAL in DCL. People were giving me the eye in the halls. Although some came around in the end.
>
> So I proposed we rewrite it using "modern" interpreter techniques. It would have to be 100% compatible, of course, because that was the VMS motto.
>

That would have been nice to see.

> I would have added something like F$GETDVI, because that was clearly needed. I would have fixed the bug requiring a close quote at the end of a final substitution in a string. I probably would have added the ability to define additional functions. I would have deprecated ampersand substitution. I would have added loops and real arrays.
>

I for one would have liked a DCL which had real loops and real arrays,
especially if they were associative arrays.

BTW, when did F$GETDVI() actually end up getting added to DCL ?

I can't remember a version of VMS without it.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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