[Info-vax] VMS Software needs to port VAX DIBOL to OpenVMS X86 platform

[Steve Ives]

On Monday, December 21, 2020 at 6:07:19 PM UTC-8, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 12/21/2020 3:15 PM, 1tim.... at gmail.com wrote: 
> > On Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 6:35:01 PM UTC-7, Arne Vajhøj wrote: 
> >> On 12/19/2020 5:44 PM, 1tim.... at gmail.com wrote: 
> >>> here is a more modern Dibol example - not 99 bottles of beer. it was written just to test a String parser class, written in Dibol. 
> >>> 
> >>> import parser 
> >>> import System.Collections 
> >>> 
> >>> record 
> >>> 
> >>> parse , at StringParser 
> >>> arry , at ArrayList 
> >>> proc 
> >>> parse = new StringParser() ;; create instance of parser 
> >> Again the code is for .NET platform (System.Collections.ArrayList). 
> >> 
> >> If all modern Dibol code is being written for .NET (.NET is a great 
> >> platform so I can understand that) then that may explain why 
> >> Dibol on VMS x86-64 is still TBD. 
> > 
> > wrong, that is OpenVMS Code. And Linux Code. That is Modern DBL
> You got System.Collections.ArrayList on VMS?? 
> 
> Arne

Yes! Since V9 which was released in April 2007, Synergy DBL, in addition to being a procedural language like DIBOL was (programs, subroutines and functions), is also an OO language, with namespaces, classes, objects, methods, properties, enums, inheritance, overloading, constructors and destructors, etc. And YES, even on VMS!

Our OO support pre-dates our support for Microsoft .NET, which was introduced in our 9.5 release in November 2010, but we knew we were going to support .NET, so we kept things as compatible as possible. So ...  System.Collections.ArrayList is a collection of objects, just like it is in .NET, even on VMS!

The cool thing is, like with EVERYTHING we do, you don't have to re-write to take advantage. OO can be used from within 40-year-old procedural code, and 40-year-old procedural code can be called from within OO apps. Best of both worlds.

This dedication to, and obsession with forward and backward compatibility is one of the main reasons that we are still in business after almost 45 years of servicing "DIBOL".

Steve Ives
Product Manager
Synergy/DE
https://www.synergex.com