[Info-vax] Assembly languages, was: Re: Listeners in VMS Basic

[Simon Clubley]

On 2021-07-13, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
> On 2021-07-13 13:06:46 +0000, Simon Clubley said:
>
> Recent C at least gets somewhat more snippy about type conversions, 
> particularly when the locally-suggested qualifiers are enabled. 
> Something akin to: /WARN=( ENABLE=( NOC99, OBSOLESCENT, DEFUNCT, 
> QUESTCODE, ...), DISABLE=(...))
>
> It'll be interesting to see the rocks that clang with C17 support will 
> kick over in some codebases.
>

It will be interesting to see what clang in general finds when used on
VMS, although for me, any compiler I have used after the VAX C era
(DEC C/gcc/clang) has been good at raising questions and finding certain
types of problems in C source code both on VMS and elsewhere.

>> I do wish however that a more type-safe alternative than C had taken 
>> hold for low-level systems programming.
>
> There wasn't a better alternative for system programming and 
> kernel-mode code available back in the 1990s, when this DEC shift from 
> Macro32 and Bliss to C happened. And even now, I'm not sure there are 
> significantly better system-programming alternatives for C to this day, 
> though there are certainly much better options available now than those 
> that existed a quarter-century ago. Rust is among the few that I'd 
> consider, here.
>

It's a pity Pillar didn't survive the cancellation in the same way GEM did.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.