[Info-vax] OO version of Macro-32, was: Re: CRTL and RMS vs SSIO

[Rich Alderson]

Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:

> BTW, you could always add some structured language constructs to
> the Macro-32 compiler that could get translated into normal
> Macro-32 code before compiling it:
> 
> 	.while(R0 != 0)
> 		{
> 		[Normal Macro-32 code]
> 		}
> 
> or:
> 
> 	.if(R0 & 1)
> 		{
> 		[Normal Macro-32 code]
> 		}
> 	.else
> 		{
> 		[Normal Macro-32 code]
> 		}
> 
> or:
> 
> 	.for(R0 = 0; R0 < R1; R0++)
> 		{
> 		[Normal Macro-32 code]
> 		}

I've read the entire thread so far, so I know that you are joking here.

I just wanted to point out that DEC (remember them?  the parent company to
Digital?) supplied a set of structured programming macros ( IF, ELSIF, ELSE,
ENDIF, DO, ENDDO) in the standard universal file ("header file") MACSYM for
Macro-10.

While many old hands objected to their use, my late friend Mark Crispin used
them extensively in his programs, and I learned them from his code.  Older
style programs used "literals" (out of line code snippets) to handle the same
kinds of things, which makes for spaghetti binaries, while the macros put
everything in-line, so that even a novice programmer can see what's going on in
the debugger.

-- 
Rich Alderson					  news at alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
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									--Galen