[Info-vax] Userland programming languages on VMS.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/29/2022 1:12 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> 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?

No and yes.

The HW still operates on ones and zeroes. But developers are usually far 
away from that level.

>> 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?

The fact is that code bases are increasing in size.

And saying that they should not does not to prevent development cost 
increases.

>> 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.  

I think it does.

* larger code bases => need for a higher level language to prevent cost 
from exploding
* more capable hardware => less need for low level language to save 
instructions and bytes
* newer high level languages has been introduces

Explains why old low level languages is being replaced by newer
high level languages.

Arne