[Info-vax] PL/I (Re: VMS Software needs to port VAX DIBOL to OpenVMS X86 platform)

[Craig A. Berry]

On 12/26/20 6:59 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
> "Craig A. Berry" <craigberry at nospam.mac.com> writes:
> 
>> On 12/26/20 9:43 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2020-12-26, Craig A. Berry <craigberry at nospam.mac.com> wrote:
> 
>>>> On 12/26/20 9:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On 2020-12-26, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>>> On 12/26/2020 6:16 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> 
>>>>>>> Is anyone still using PL/I BTW ?
> 
>>>>>>> I thought DEC sold off the PL/I compiler and that the person it was
>>>>>>> sold to retired and either sold off or wound down his business.
> 
>>>>>> Kednos & Tim Sneddon?
> 
>>>>>> Arne
> 
>>>>> Yes, that was him. Thanks for reminding me of the name.
> 
>>>> It was Tom Linden, not Tim, who owned Kednos.  I think Tim worked there
>>>> at some point and kednos.com now redirects to Tim's endlesssoftware.com.
> 
>>> Thanks for the correction. It's not a language I have ever used and
>>> I have long forgotten any detailed knowledge of who PL/I was sold to.
> 
>> I've never used it either and I know nothing about current ownership or
>> plans.  I just remember that it came up in discussions of what gets lost
>> in a platform port.
> 
>> There is a now-moribund PL/I project for the GCC back end:
> 
>> <http://pl1gcc.sourceforge.net>
> 
>> and there is a proprietary compiler that runs on Linux:
> 
>> <http://www.iron-spring.com/about.html>
> 
>> Both of these emulate IBM PL/I and would likely require a monumental
>> effort to replace DEC PL/I.
> 
> As I remember the book on the VAX (VMS) port, the goal was very much to
> "emulate" (implement) IBM PL/I, so I doubt that there would be that much
> effort for any implementation with the same goal...

Interesting.  I would have expected a lot of DECisms similar to the
keywords in BASIC for dealing with RMS files and such. But even if the
language syntax is identical with no extensions, there would still be a
lot of work to make one of these compilers replace the DEC/Kednos PL/I
compiler unless the answer to all of the following questions is "no."
Do you want command-line compatibility?
Do you want to support the VMS calling standard?
Do you want to debug the code with the VMS debugger?
Do you want compatible messages, warnings, and errors?

...and possibly others I'm not thinking of.

The folks making money from PL/I on OpenVMS Alpha did not see a business
case for porting it to Itanium almost 20 years ago, so I'm not sure what
the business case would be now for getting the same or equivalent
compiler up and running on OpenVMS x86.  That said, I'd be delighted to
see an offbeat and mostly-forgotten language brought back to life by its
users, if any such folks are still out there.