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From: jim@hcr.UUCP (Jim Sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c
Subject: VAX/VMS C
Message-ID: <2826@hcr.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Sep-87 12:51:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: hcr.2826
Posted: Fri Sep  4 12:51:55 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 21:28:50 EDT
References: <1065@vu-vlsi.UUCP> <12513@clyde.ATT.COM> <203@trwrc.UUCP> <138@kesmai.COM> <584@sugar.UUCP> <1069@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jim@hcr.UUCP (Jim Sullivan)
Organization: HCR Corporation, Toronto
Summary: 
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <1069@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In article <584@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>[VAX/VMS C] is the worst 'C' development environment
>
>
>Even a very careful reading of the VMS C documentation and release
>notes reveals absolutely no bugs or deficiencies in the VMS C
>environment.  If anything, as the manual makes clear, VMS C adds
>functionality to the original UNIX implementation.
>
>Compare this with the large number of bugs and deficiencies that are
>documented in the manual for almost every UNIX program.

Of course, if the bug is not documented, it doesn't exist.  Personnally,
I'd rather know about the bugs before I hit them.  Honesty is the best
policy.

>Also note that VMS C runtime environment automatically converts all
>command-line arguments to lowercase, thus greatly simplifying argument
>parsing.

unless you want mixed case arguments.  Of course, the rest of VMS uses
uppercase arguments....

>          And no lint-like program is provided, saving you the
>temptation of using one and having to face the rude diagnostics it
>would probably give you.

because you've written bad, unportable code.  Just cause C lets you do
things doesn't mean that you should do these things.  Lint is very useful
in tracking down the bad things that you didn't mean to do.  Of course,
DEC seems to think that some things I consider illegal are perfectly legal.
For example, taking the address of a constant! (&2) or a[]="string"; inside
a function. (thanks to local C guru for comfirmation)

>But perhaps the most outstanding advantage of VMS C environment is that
>the cursor control routines require a terminal manufactured by DEC or
>something equivalent.  This saves no end of trouble--no more time
>wasted having to create termcap entries for strange terminals of
>questionable quality.

Just have to spend your money on new terminals if you don't have the DEC
supported terminal. (see discussion in comp.os.vms about SMG)

>Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  {ihnp4,seismo}!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi

Jim Sullivan	HCR Corporation