[Info-vax] Better languages than BASIC

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/12/2024 8:45 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2024-01-12, Marc Van Dyck <marc.gr.vandyck at invalid.skynet.be> wrote:
>> Amazing that in current programming languages discussions, PASCAL is
>> never mentioned anymore. I understand that it has lost a lot of
>> momentum
>> and never was a big success outside of the academic field, which used
>> to
>> be a DEC stronghold way in the past. But in this case, why is VSI (and
>> before that HPE) still supporting that language today ? It cannot be
>> customer base, can it ? It is certainly not seen as a language of the
>> future either... So why ? Just because John likes it, or what ?
> 
> Pascal is a dead language for most new development. Unfortunately.

Yes.

Delphi usage has declined for many year.

> VSI released the compilers in order of customer usage and there is still
> a large base of existing Pascal source code that needs to be able to
> run on x86-64 VMS.

VMS Pascal compatible with VMS Pascal 10-20-30-40 years ago
is a must for VSI.

But trying to modernize VMS Pascal by adding new features
seems like an interesting possibility to me!

Arne