[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Michael Kraemer]

Jordi Guillaumes i Pons schrieb:

> Specially if you program in C and "think" in C. If you follow the rules 
> (VAX Calling and Conditio Handling IIRC) you should use descriptors to 
> pass strings. 

and what if I want to keep my programs portable ?

> And your routine _should_ check if the lenght of the 
> string passed as parameter fits in your buffer.

and what if it doesn't fit?
Abort the program?

> C is a good language for systems programming. I've always thought of it 
> as an assembly language on steroids. For a systems programmer pointers 
> are part of his daily life. But those things have no place in a payroll 
> program. And, for the sake of the security, neither in a web server.

Blech. You can use it for just everything, in particular
if you want portability.
If programmers can't cope with pointers, they probably
picked up the wrong career.
And, BTW, if you think C is an "unsecure" language,
why would it be a better choice for an OS than an app?
An OS has to be more secure than the apps running on top.

> 
> Oh, by the way, I don't have if this has REALLY happened. Do you nou 
> about any succesful attack against a VAX running VMS using a 
> buffer/stack overflow?

Do you know about a successful attack against a C64?