[Info-vax] Userland programming languages on VMS.

[Simon Clubley]

On 2022-01-27, VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG <VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote:
> In article <ssurv4$nm1$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>
>>On a more serious note, what would be an acceptable programming language
>>for userland tools which need to be shipped as part of the operating system ?
>>
>>Let's look at the language options for creating a new userland level
>>tool on VMS today:
>>
>>Macro-32 and BLISS are absolutely unsuitable for obvious reasons.
>
> What *obvious* reasons?
>

1) No type safety (even C has _some_ type safety but not as much as say
Pascal, Ada, or the Wirth languages in general),

2) ability to make more really silly mistakes that the compiler will not
catch because it doesn't have enough information to tell you,

3) vast amount of effort to do anything significant compared with the amount
of effort required even in C to do the same thing,

4) lack of people who understand the languages when changes are required.

BLISS, and especially Macro-32, belong in the past for any brand new
programs (as opposed to maintaining existing ones).

The absolute minimum standard for any new applications these days is C.
(And yes, that's a _minimum_ standard. :-))

Simon.

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