[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <paul.nospam-1E8528.18033009102009 at pbook.sture.ch>,
	"P. Sture" <paul.nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> In article <7j7128F34epr5U2 at mid.individual.net>,
>  billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> 
>> In article <slrnhcqtmn.n64.rivie at stench.no.domain>,
>> 	Roger Ivie <rivie at ridgenet.net> writes:
>> > On 2009-10-08, Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>> >> It was  Fortran IV on a Univac 1100 running Exec-8.  Of
>> >> course, the programs in question were also proof that it is not
>> >> only C that gets used for the wrong purposes.  These were business
>> >> applications written in Fortran by engineers who needed something
>> >> to doto keep them busy during slow summers. 
>> > 
>> > A friend of mine wrote a compiler in Microsoft's FORTRAN for CP/M.
>> 
>> I know (knew) of at least one commercial COBOL compiler that claimed to
>> be written in COBOL.  It's not just people writing business apps in C
>> that are using the wrong tool for the job.
>> 
> 
> I remember reading the case for doing that for one of those COBOL compilers,
> and it seemed pretty convincing at the time. To me anyway.
> 
> But this brings us to the price of compilers. Most of my customers in 
> the VAX era had a COBOL compiler and that was it. Wrong tool or not, 
> COBOL did get used for systems programming on occasion (and yours truly 
> did it, though only for low volumes of data).

Guess I'm just spoiled.  I have never worked in an environment that limited
me to just one compiler.  Heck, I had compilers for at least 5 languages
on my Z80 based TRS80 and 4 on my 6809 based TRS80.  :-)  And my very first
LSI-11 had 5.  And the Prime Minis had at least a dozen.

bill
 

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>