[Info-vax] Clang

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2022-11-16 22:00:57 +0000, Dave Froble said:

> On 11/16/2022 12:37 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> On 2022-11-16 02:42:46 +0000, Dave Froble said:
>> 
>>> I'm curious.  While I don't know diddly about C++, I'm wondering about 
>>> all the rather often upgrades to the standard.  Was it that bad to 
>>> begin with?  Does it really need such constant upgrades?
>> 
>> To remain competitive, most actively-maintained languages, tools, and 
>> products receive updates and upgrades.
>> 
>> Shifting competitive and feature and expectations baselines can be 
>> subtle and gradual effects. Right up until they're not.
>> 
>> Sometimes fixing a problem or limit within an existing case. Sometimes 
>> with feature or tool or API/ABI deprecations.
>> 
>> You are well familiar with the effects arising on a platform and with 
>> tooling that hasn't particularly received updates and upgrades, of 
>> course.
>> 
>> With DEC BASIC from years ago, removing the need for (most) line 
>> numbers was a nice enhancement. Got rid of a whole lot of unnecessary 
>> clutter. There are other obvious or potential enhancements for BASIC, 
>> as well.
> 
> Nice enhancements, yes, that can be good.  In Basic the RECORD, LOC, 
> and other enhancements allowed much more flexibility and capabilities.  
> That was what, 30 years or so ago?  Not every 2-3 years.  Still room 
> for more, such as the much sought after unsigned integers.

A whole lot has happened in some of the other BASIC implementations in 
those ~30 years, too.

I'd be hard-pressed to point to any substantial DEC/Compaq/HP/VSI BASIC 
enhancements in the past 30 years. Not past the early DEC BASIC era.

Which leaves VSI BASIC uncompetitive, as languages and library support 
goes. I've mentioned (the lack of) UTF-8 support. There are other 
areas. Once you start to see it, there's glue code everywhere, too.

The C and C++ standards updates tend to be non-breaking changes, past 
the K&R to ANSI/ISO era. Use the new stuff or not. Use the portability, 
or  not. Your call.

As for those reading here that might consider using C, C++, BASIC, 
whatever—or selecting OpenVMS more generally—for overhauls or for new 
work, they are going to be looking at these and other details across 
platforms.

Comparing an app now to the past in the context of an existing app, is 
different from a new product or platform porting or language target 
evaluation, is different from determining where a developer wants an 
existing app to be in the future.



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