[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[JF Mezei]

glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:

> Finding the first non-blank character requires only a linear
> search from the beginning.  VAX has SCANC which may or may not
> do that fast. 


VAX didn't exist when someone decided to use null terminated strings. If
the processors of the day had opcodes and architectures that made null
terminated strings more efficient, it may have explained their decisions.

Also, back in the 1960s/1970s, string processing wasn't as big a thing.
Everything was uppercase, fixed length, and unix machines were really
used for number crunching, not for cobol that processes punched cards
containing payment information for your phone bill.