[Info-vax] Technical issues with VMS BASIC port to x86-64 ?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2024-02-20, Craig A. Berry <craigberry at nospam.mac.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/20/24 12:27 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> This is NOT a moan about how long it is taking for BASIC to appear,
>> and I would request people not turn it into one, at least in this
>> thread.
>> 
>> I am curious, at a purely technical level, about the issues that VSI
>> have encountered with porting BASIC to x86-64 VMS and what the issues
>> are, at a technical level, that is making the port of BASIC apparently
>> much more complex than the other traditional VMS languages.
>
> I'm pretty sure this has already been explained multiple times.  What I
> think I remember is that exception handling and dynamic maps pose some
> challenges, and there may be RTL dependencies that are somewhat
> different from the other compilers.  But I don't think COBOL was easy
> either -- it just has a lot more users and was thus a higher priority.
>

That's correct Craig. However, those discussions were within the context
of BASIC being released "shortly" at the time those discussions took place.

Given the extended delay since those discussions, I was wondering if more
deeper technical issues had emerged which had not yet been discussed here.

Simon.

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