[Info-vax] VMS Software Releases Roadmap Updates

[John Reagan]

On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 11:43:05 PM UTC-4, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 9/28/2021 10:58 PM, John Reagan wrote: 
> > On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 1:34:19 PM UTC-4, Robert A. Brooks wrote: 
> >> On 9/27/2021 1:04 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote: 
> >>> On 9/27/2021 12:23 PM, Dave Froble wrote: 
> >>>> Looks as if x86 will be useless, for me, for more than a year .. 
> >>> 
> >>> 9.2 are expected out in April and are considered production ready. 
> >>> So only a half year. 
> >>> 
> >>> *IF* you are willing to cross compile your Basic code on Itanium. 
> >>> 
> >>> But I fear that at least some people will question the "production 
> >>> ready" status when native compilers are not available. That is 
> >>> not a real issue (it is common for some types of system to 
> >>> use cross compile), but it could very well be a perceived like 
> >>> that. 
> >> For Basic, which is not optimizable, the quality of the generated code 
> >> likely will not change from cross-compiled to natively compiled. 
> >> 
> >> John will step in and correct me if I'm wrong . . . 
> >> 
> >> -- 
> >> 
> >> -- Rob 
> > BASIC runs through the GEM optimizer on Alpha and Itanium just like any other compiler. Of course when you have an RTL every 20 instructions or so, there is only so much code motions that the compiler can perform. 
> >
> So in practice, that makes Robert correct ??? 
> 
> :-) 
> 
> I've never asked, is there a cross compiler for Basic?
> -- 
> David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450 
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: da... at tsoft-inc.com 
> DFE Ultralights, Inc. 
> 170 Grimplin Road 
> Vanderbilt, PA 15486
The BASIC cross-compiler is close to being released (perhaps within a month).  The interface between the BASIC compiler and RTL is complicated.  The BASIC frontend relied on GEM behaviors that we didn't know about.  It has taken a while to get things ironed out.