[Info-vax] Userland programming languages on VMS.

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 1/31/22 08:36, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 1/31/2022 3:25 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2022-01-31 01:22, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2022-01-29, Scott Dorsey <kludge at panix.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Pascal is pretty limited but makes it hard to shoot yourself in the 
>>>> foot.
>>>> And most implementations don't use null-terminated strings which are 
>>>> the
>>>> most serious source of vulnerabilities in C code.
>>>> --scott
>>>>
>>>
>>> I wouldn't call Pascal "limited". DEC used it to implement VAXELN...
>>
>> The problem is that the ISO standard for Pascal is pretty useless. 
>> Which is why every useful Pascal have extensions...
>> And they are all different...
>> Which makes everything very non-standard...
>>
>> But Pascal is definitely not that bad a language. But it has it's 
>> warts...
> 
> Pascal as in Wirth Pascal is a very good language for what it was
> intended for: teaching structured programming. It is just that real
> world programs need a bit more.

And, just maybe, the answer was to pick the right language for the job
and not try to modify the wrong language to make it fit.  When you buy
your kid one of those toys with round, square and triangle blocks and
holes to match do you also buy them a saw so that any block can fit in
any hole?

bill