[Info-vax] VSI Basic

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/1/2023 6:58 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 3/1/2023 6:44 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 3/1/2023 1:14 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> 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.

There are two types of "smart".

Providing smart functionality. VMS Basic has a very nice LOC/FP
ratio in my opinion.

Implementing some functionality in a "smart" way.

> 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.

He can not change the first type of smart only the second.

(well - he can do anything, but he don't want VMS Basic users showing
up with pitchforks)

Arne