Why use U* over VMS

[Peter da Silva]

In article <1809.272c3135 at dcs.simpact.com> kquick at dcs.simpact.com (Kevin Quick, Simpact Assoc., Inc.) writes:
> 4. Overall, the C RTL is very similar between Unix and VMS, with the effort
>    for VMS C being to adhere to the C "standard" (chuckle, chuckle :-) and
>    make non-destructive language enhancements where needed.

Well, they made some arbitrary language "enhancements" as well, that didn't
need to be done. For example, "#include stdio" instead of "#include <stdio.h>".

Now you can keep on #including <stdio.h> instead of stdio, but it's quicker
the other way... even though they're semantically identical. Arbitrary.

>    As far as the system RTL availability, the VMS has a large and very
>    convenient RTL, which is implemented with a general callable interface

The number of features in the standard VMS library are nice. The interface
to them from C has an un-necessary amount of suckiness, but the features
themselves are handy. It also comes with a number of VM features that are
very useful, equivalent to mmap() on SunOS.

> 5. VMS supports a very large number of third-party terminal devices, so
>    it is not probable that you are going to have problems here.

It's virtually certain that you will not be able to use non DEC-compatible
terminals. It comes with a terminfo clone, but none of the editors support
it. Dumb.
-- 
Peter da Silva.   `-_-'
+1 713 274 5180.   'U`
peter at ferranti.com