[Info-vax] VSI Basic

[Dave Froble]

On 3/1/2023 6:44 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 3/1/2023 1:14 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-03-01, Rich Jordan <jordan at ccs4vms.com> wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 10:09:23 AM UTC-6, Bob Gezelter wrote:
>>>>  From a recent email:
>>>>
>>>> "VMS Software Inc. is pleased to announce availability of a test release of
>>>> a Fortran compiler for OpenVMS x86. The code is based on VSI Fortran on
>>>> OpenVMS I64 for source compatibility."
>>>>
>>>> The message contained a link to the Release Notes, but the URL does not
>>>> paste well.
>>>>
>>>> - Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com
>>>
>>> Good news indeed!  But our last Fortran customer departed some years ago.
>>>
>>> Basic is what we're waiting for.
>>>
>>
>> Given that it's already March 2023, my guess is that Basic will come out
>> in time for the 10th anniversary of the VMS porting effort. :-)
>>
>> On a more serious note, I wonder how much income VSI get from Basic ?
>>
>> If John finds a core problem that can't be easily fixed, is there a
>> point at which VSI could say that the expenditure on VMS Basic is
>> going to be greater than the income from it and hence drop it ?
>>
>> Of the mainstream languages available for x86-64 VMS, Basic would appear
>> to be the one with the smallest market share, and don't forget that VSI
>> have already decided not to proceed with Ada for x86-64 VMS.
>
> Based on comp.os.vms questions and forum.vmssoftware.com questions,
> then VMS Basic seems to be pretty widely used on VMS.
>
> I don't think VMS Basic is at risk to be deemed financially
> not worth it.
>
> It just has to be completed. I suspect that the main reason
> why Fortran was done before Basic was the simple fact that
> LLVM has Fortran support (flang) out of the box. Alternative
> explanation is that VMS Basic has some advanced features while
> Fortran is probably more traditional.

Some may have me expound on "smart people" in the past.  Those who think they 
are clever by doing things different/sneaky/whatever.  From what John has 
written in the past, it seems that some "smart people" did some things in the 
Basic compiler that were a bit different (to say the least) than what John's 
people expected.

It was quite interesting when he recently said he'd rather change the compiler. 
Perhaps to dumb down to reasonable what some "smart people" did in the past.

:-)


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David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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