[Info-vax] Userland programming languages on VMS.

[Richard Maher]

On 28/01/2022 4:08 am, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 1/27/2022 2:31 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2022-01-27, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 1/27/2022 11:25 AM, John Reagan wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 3:39:38 AM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>> Why C, when there are better languages?
>>>>
>>>> If you are about to use the B-word, better is relative.
>>>
>>> Obviously.
>>>
>>> But not everybody is in love with C.
>>>
>>> Personally I consider C a fine language for OS kernel development
>>> but not so great a language for more regular applications. And
>>> DIR is really an application.
>>>
>>> I am not good at VMS Basic, so I would prefer VMS Pascal.
>>>
>>> :-)
>>
>> Pascal is acceptable, but Ada would be better. :-)
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> Basic appears to be a poor choice when compared to the alternatives 
>> available.
>>
>> Ada is no longer available on VMS going forward.
>>
>> C is suitable, but is low-level.
>>
>> C++ is a possibility (provided a sane subset of the language is used).
>> However, am I the only one who finds that C++ compilers across all
>> operating systems get slower and slower as new versions some out ?
>> Look at how long it takes to compile the LLVM toolkit for example. :-( 
>> :-(
>>
>> Pascal is also very much a possibility.
>>
>> Fortran and COBOL are not suitable for writing operating system userland
>> tools.
>>
>> So what programming language would you use for a new userland tool on VMS
>> if you couldn't use Pascal ? As far as I can see, it's only C or maybe 
>> C++.
> 
> I believe Basic would be a lot better than C.
> 
> Arne
> 

And COBOL is the besterest.

And if you can program some MACRO then you need a Garbage Collect to 
cover up yor lack of skill in managing memory.