[Info-vax] VSI roadmap

[Simon Clubley]

On 2023-08-21, Chris Townley <news at cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
> On 21/08/2023 13:23, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-08-18, ultr... at gmail.com <ultradwc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> THEN YOU MAKE SURE SYNERGY PORTS THEIR DIBOL LANGUAGE ALONG WITH SQL CONNECT WHICH CONNECTS TO ORACLE
>>>
>>> https://www.synergex.com/products-connectivity-open-source/
>> 
>> Two things Bob:
>> 
>> 1) Porting Dibol to x86-64 VMS does nothing to solve the problems
>> discussed here.
>> 
>> 2) If Synergex have decided not to port to x86-64 VMS (based on your
>> comments) then it might mean they no longer have enough VMS users to
>> justify the port.
>> 
>> In that case, you are looking at moving your Dibol code over to another
>> platform such as Linux. This is a problem that (for example) Ada users
>> have had to deal with as there will not be an Ada compiler for x86-64 VMS.
>> 
>> Simon.
>
> unless of course there comes an opensource port?
>

That will not happen. That simply will not happen.

Not only has the language been massively extended since the DEC days,
the language itself is only one part of a Synergex toolkit, which
includes, among other things, a GUI/character cell forms environment
integrated into Synergex Dibol user source code that would also need
to be duplicated.

IOW, this is no longer DEC ANSI DIBOL we are talking about.

Try to imagine the effort involved with implementing DEC Basic (or similar)
on Linux and then imagine several times that amount of work. That's the
amount of effort (at an absolute minimum) we are talking about here.

And this is based on my last knowledge of the language from a decade or
so ago before I changed jobs. Goodness knows how much else has been added
since then.

Simon.

PS: BTW Bob, you may wish to consider an upgrade to a TTY Model 43.
They have a much nicer keyboard than the ASR 33 and also support lowercase.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.