[Info-vax] Userland programming languages on VMS.

[Dave Froble]

On 1/29/2022 12:09 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 1/29/2022 12:11 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 1/28/2022 2:14 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> BLISS, and especially Macro-32, belong in the past for any brand new
>>> programs (as opposed to maintaining existing ones)
>>
>> Bliss was developed for writing system level code.  Why has it all of a sudden
>> become unsuitable?  I will admit that it isn't so well known.
>
> Bliss does today what it did 40 years ago.
>
> But the world has changed in those 40 years.

I thought we were still working with ones and zeros.  Has that changed when I 
wasn't looking?

> The code bases has increased in size. An OS is probably 10
> times as many lines of code as it would have been 40 years ago.
> Unless higher productivity languages and tools are introduced
> that means more than 10 times as expensive.

Just because there is bloatware doesn't make it better.  Perhaps worse?

> Hardware for money has increase dramatically. Probably like
> a factor 10000. An extra instruction here and there and a few
> extra bytes here and there cost very little.

Not sure where you're going with that.  Doesn't sound relevant.

> New languages and tools has shown up. C is far from new. But C++
> and Rust are newer than Bliss.

Yet C has widespread use, as far an I've been informed.

> So even if Bliss works the same today as it did 40 years ago,
> then it can still have been the right choice 40 years ago and the
> wrong choice today.

You haven't made that case.  None of the above addresses the issue.  Just a 
bunch of handwaving.

I have never used Bliss, don't know it at all.  So I cannot be the judge of it's 
worthiness.  But all I seem to  read is "it's old" and "nobody known it". 
Neither of those actually addresses it's suitability.


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David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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