[Info-vax] General Availability of 9.2 for x86-64

[Richard Maher]

On 17/07/2022 7:37 am, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 7/16/2022 10:02 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 7/16/22 09:52, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> On 7/16/2022 8:35 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> On 7/16/22 01:00, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>> On 7/15/2022 10:33 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>>> A bigger question would be other than Dave how much of the
>>>>>> VMS application base still uses BASIC.   :-)
>>>>> 
>>>>> A decent indicator of that is Clair Grant saying a while back
>>>>> that there would always be a Basic compiler on VMS, or,
>>>>> something to that effect. Perhaps he has a better feel for
>>>>> the user base?
>>>> 
>>>> Probably true, but you have to admit that in a world where
>>>> COBOL (the first serious business programming language) is
>>>> considered dead and languages like Fortran, Pascal and even Ada
>>>> don't even rate a mention in a CS degree program it is pretty
>>>> funny that a children's programming language best known for
>>>> things like the TRS-80 and VIC-20 is still in use.
>>> 
>>> "children's programming language best known for things like the 
>>> TRS-80 and VIC-20"
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure that you intended that to be derogatory, or just
>>> your opinion, but the Basic Plus language produced by EG&H was
>>> not the same as some Basic languages.  It had many good features,
>>> and, was quite adequate for business programming, and other uses.
>>> The name may be shared, but the implementations were very
>>> different.  As DEC Basic, and follow-ons, it has only gotten
>>> better.
>> 
>> So did COBOL.  And what did that get it?
> 
> Cobol has evolved original -> 74 -> 85 -> OO additions, but I think
> it is still the same language.
> 
> The many flavors of Basic share the name and only a very short list 
> of common  syntactical items (*) but are otherwise very different 
> languages.
> 
> From the very primitive Dartmouth Basic, GW-Basic etc. to pretty
> advanced VMS Basic, VB6, VBS etc. to full multi-paradigm VB.NET.
> 
> Arne
> 
> *) What does all known Basic variants share syntax wise? Case 
> insensitive, goto, for next loop. Anything else?
> 
> 

Nested Programs. GLOBAL variables. COMMON routines. DBMS. EVALUATE.