[Info-vax] Userland programming languages on VMS.

[Simon Clubley]

On 2022-02-03, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 2/3/2022 9:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> 
>> Because C has turned out to be a better choice than Fortran for
>> writing userland tools so you would choose C (at a minimum) for
>> writing such tools today.
>
> Maybe it would be more correct to say that C is a less bad
> choice than Fortran.
>

As just mentioned, there's a reason I call C the _minimum_ acceptable
option and not the maximum acceptable option. :-)

> A key thing in such tools are string handling.
>
> C's with null terminated fixed size char arrays sucks
> just as much as Fortran fixed length characters.
>
> But the standard C string library (string.h) is just more
> powerful than what a Fortran compiler comes with.
>
> But most other languages would do better.
>
> Neither C nor Fortran has much protection against
> developers shooting themselves in the foot.
>

Agreed. But unfortunately, people tend to be forced towards C simply
because it's the only language that has universal coverage across
architectures and operating systems, including when operating in
kernel mode. It's also a language that's easy to call from other
languages as well so it's easy to call libraries written in C as well.

Simon.

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