On 2/22/2023 8:16 AM, bill wrote:
> On 2/22/2023 7:52 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Paul Gavin  <paulgavinco@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Having attempted to move sample code from two flavors of COBOL code
>>> (OpenVM=
>>> S terminal and HP-UX ANSI format) to GnuCOBOL, I had to modify every
>>> commen=
>>> t and most continuation lines to get them to compile. Shell script
>>> was fair=
>>> ly simple to write to fix these issues, but still changed the code.
>>> None of=
>>> the VMS code used by descriptor calls in the main code, but calls to
>>> syste=
>>> m services on both side were a pain. Both had database precompiler
>>> needs (C=
>>> ODASYL and Informix) and those certainly would not work at all.=20
>>
>> The comment and continuation issues are addressed with compiler flags.
>> Not that updating the code that way might not be a good idea anyway.
>
> I wold love to hear why people might think that GnuCOBOL isn't
> ready for production use.  And unreadable C intermediate code
> is not a valid reason as it was never intended to be read or
> modified by humans any more than the RTL in other compilers
> or the assembler they generate.

The original comment seems to relate to source format.

My (extremely small) experience is that if I move Cobol
code written as I (a non-Cobol programmer) write Cobol
from VMS to PC and compile with GnuCOBOL using -free
switch the it works.

But I do see a few issues:
1) indexed files where options are:
- BDB and release your code under GPL
- BDB and pay Oracle
- VBISAM and live with what it doesn't support
2) the performance of COMP-3 arithmetic is
horrible
3) it has a weird approach to endianess on disk:
- default COMP are stored big endian not native
- COMP-1 and COMP-2 are stored native

Arne

On 2/22/2023 8:06 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-02-21, ultr...@gmail.com <ultradwc@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
>>> the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
>>> write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
>>> applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
>>> C++, Ada, Pascal, or Java.
>>>
>>> It also suffers from not having a free version so you have to pay
>>> for the compiler (and unless the payment model has changed over the
>>> last decade or so), you also have to pay for runtime licences.
>>>
>>
>> C ???? AT LEAST DIBOL CAN BE DEBUGGED ...
>
> Bob, where did I mention C in the above list ?
>
> Simon.
>

Don't you know, Bob reads your mind ...

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 8:06:31 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-02-21, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >> Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
> >> the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
> >> write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
> >> applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
> >> C++, Ada, Pascal, or Java.
> >>
> >> It also suffers from not having a free version so you have to pay
> >> for the compiler (and unless the payment model has changed over the
> >> last decade or so), you also have to pay for runtime licences.
> >>
> >
> > C ???? AT LEAST DIBOL CAN BE DEBUGGED ...
> Bob, where did I mention C in the above list ?
> Simon.
>
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

"Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
>>>> C++ <<<<

IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ...

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 17:32:31 -0800, ultr...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 8:06:31 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley
> wrote:
>> On 2023-02-21, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley
>> > wrote:
>> >> Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
>> >> the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
>> >> write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
>> >> applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
>> >> C++, Ada, Pascal, or Java.
>> >>
>> >> It also suffers from not having a free version so you have to pay
>> >> for the compiler (and unless the payment model has changed over the
>> >> last decade or so), you also have to pay for runtime licences.
>> >>
>> >>
>> > C ???? AT LEAST DIBOL CAN BE DEBUGGED ...
>> Bob, where did I mention C in the above list ?
>> Simon.
>>
>> --
>> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Walking
>> destinations on a map are further away than they appear.
>
> "Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is the
> answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to write some
> applications in it, and while its well suited to certain applications,
> it is not a general language in the same way as say
>>>>> C++ <<<<
>
> IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ...

Calm down.

Then you don't know much.

Notice the '++'? C and C+_+ are not the same language.

On 2023-02-22, ultr...@gmail.com <ultradwc@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 8:06:31 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-02-21, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> >> Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
>> >> the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
>> >> write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
>> >> applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
>> >> C++, Ada, Pascal, or Java.
>> >>
>> >> It also suffers from not having a free version so you have to pay
>> >> for the compiler (and unless the payment model has changed over the
>> >> last decade or so), you also have to pay for runtime licences.
>> >>
>> >
>> > C ???? AT LEAST DIBOL CAN BE DEBUGGED ...
>> Bob, where did I mention C in the above list ?
>
> "Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
> the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
> write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
> applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
>>>>> C++ <<<<
>
> IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ...

Er, Bob, C and C++ are two very, very, different languages.

(Regardless of what some recruiters and people with broken keyboards
would have you believe.)

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 8:05:34 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-02-22, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 8:06:31 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >> On 2023-02-21, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >> >> Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
> >> >> the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
> >> >> write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
> >> >> applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
> >> >> C++, Ada, Pascal, or Java.
> >> >>
> >> >> It also suffers from not having a free version so you have to pay
> >> >> for the compiler (and unless the payment model has changed over the
> >> >> last decade or so), you also have to pay for runtime licences.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > C ???? AT LEAST DIBOL CAN BE DEBUGGED ...
> >> Bob, where did I mention C in the above list ?
> >
> > "Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
> > the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
> > write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
> > applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
> >>>>> C++ <<<<
> >
> > IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ...
> Er, Bob, C and C++ are two very, very, different languages.
>
> (Regardless of what some recruiters and people with broken keyboards
> would have you believe.)
> Simon.
>
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

I HELPED MY SON WITH C++ AND C# IN COLLEGE ... SAME OLD C SAME OLD COMPILER/DEBUGGER ISSUES

On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 8:05:34 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-02-22, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 8:06:31 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >> On 2023-02-21, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >> >> Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
> >> >> the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
> >> >> write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
> >> >> applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
> >> >> C++, Ada, Pascal, or Java.
> >> >>
> >> >> It also suffers from not having a free version so you have to pay
> >> >> for the compiler (and unless the payment model has changed over the
> >> >> last decade or so), you also have to pay for runtime licences.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > C ???? AT LEAST DIBOL CAN BE DEBUGGED ...
> >> Bob, where did I mention C in the above list ?
> >
> > "Nothing as far as I am aware. Bob just likes to claim that DIBOL is
> > the answer to everything. It's not. In a previous life, I used to
> > write some applications in it, and while its well suited to certain
> > applications, it is not a general language in the same way as say
> >>>>> C++ <<<<
> >
> > IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ...
> Er, Bob, C and C++ are two very, very, different languages.
>
> (Regardless of what some recruiters and people with broken keyboards
> would have you believe.)
> Simon.
>
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

AND SAME OLD disorienting LANGUAGE

What, DEC C cannot be debugged?

Working on some enhancements in a C based app on Alphas running 8.4.
Can get to debugger just fine, step through code, look at data, set break points, etc., even from within ACMS.

On 2/23/2023 3:28 PM, ultr...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 8:05:34 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>>>> C++ <<<<
>>>
>>> IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ...
>> Er, Bob, C and C++ are two very, very, different languages.
>
> I HELPED MY SON WITH C++ AND C# IN COLLEGE ... SAME OLD C SAME OLD COMPILER/DEBUGGER ISSUES

C and C++ are very different languages. Most C code will compile and
run as expected when compiled with a C++ compiler, but C++ is
so much more than C - and a writing C code for a C++ course
should give a very low grade.

And C# is not like C at all. Besides using curly braces and
having the 3 arg for loop then I do not see much similarity.

Just compare the hello worlds:

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{ printf("Hello world!\n");
return 0;
}

VS:

using System;

public class HelloWorld
{ public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
}
}

(C# pre-V9.0)

Arne

On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 6:43:28 PM UTC-5, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 2/23/2023 3:28 PM, ultr...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 8:05:34 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >>>>>>> C++ <<<<
> >>>
> >>> IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS ...
> >> Er, Bob, C and C++ are two very, very, different languages.
> >
> > I HELPED MY SON WITH C++ AND C# IN COLLEGE ... SAME OLD C SAME OLD COMPILER/DEBUGGER ISSUES
> C and C++ are very different languages. Most C code will compile and
> run as expected when compiled with a C++ compiler, but C++ is
> so much more than C - and a writing C code for a C++ course
> should give a very low grade.
>
> And C# is not like C at all. Besides using curly braces and
> having the 3 arg for loop then I do not see much similarity.
>
> Just compare the hello worlds:
>
> #include<stdio.h>
>
> int main()
> {
> printf("Hello world!\n");
> return 0;
> }
>
> VS:
>
> using System;
>
> public class HelloWorld
> {
> public static void Main(string[] args)
> {
> Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
> }
> }
>
> (C# pre-V9.0)
>
> Arne

People reading this already know that both C and C++ are the two most important languages of all time. So much so that almost all other applications and languages (everything from COBOL to Python3) are now written in one or the other (usually the other). Here is a short list from Bjarne Stroustrup: https://www.stroustrup.com/applications.html

Unfortunately, the companies maintaining DEC-C and DEC-C++ over the years did not agree so those DEC products were not kept up-to-date. For example, both MySQL and MariaDB (after version 5.5) cannot be ported to OpenVMS (yet) because those database engines require a version of C/C++ known as C11.

But like a bad dream, the problem now involves a moving target:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C11_(C_standard_revision)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C17_(C_standard_revision)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C2x [[[ C23 ??? ]]]

In this I blame DEC, Compaq and HP (the first one in this list also tried to block TCP/IP on VMS). The only company trying to correct this problem is VSI and we can only imagine the difficulty involved in adding new features while not breaking the existing tool sets. So do you fix the existing tools; build a cross-compiler; or do something else? I don't know but I'm sure the good folks at VSI will figure it out because if they do not, then that will be the end of OpenVMS. Sure you would be able to run old stuff along with some carefully controlled new stuff (eg. Apache httpd has be carefully controlled to not employ new language features) but you will not be so lucky with other products.

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html

On 2023-02-23, ultr...@gmail.com <ultradwc@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I HELPED MY SON WITH C++ AND C# IN COLLEGE ... SAME OLD C SAME OLD COMPILER/DEBUGGER ISSUES

If you consider C# to be in any way related to C, then you are _very_
seriously delusional.

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2/24/2023 8:07 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 6:43:28 PM UTC-5, Arne Vajhøj
> wrote:
>> On 2/23/2023 3:28 PM, ultr...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 8:05:34 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley
>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 1:35:57 PM UTC-5, Simon
>>>>>>> Clubley wrote:
>>>>>>>>> C++ <<<<
>>>>>
>>>>> IF THAT ISN'T A PROMOTION OF C OVER DIBOL I DON'T KNOW WHAT
>>>>> IS ...
>>>> Er, Bob, C and C++ are two very, very, different languages.
>>>
>>> I HELPED MY SON WITH C++ AND C# IN COLLEGE ... SAME OLD C SAME
>>> OLD COMPILER/DEBUGGER ISSUES
>> C and C++ are very different languages. Most C code will compile
>> and run as expected when compiled with a C++ compiler, but C++ is
>> so much more than C - and a writing C code for a C++ course should
>> give a very low grade.
>>
>> And C# is not like C at all. Besides using curly braces and having
>> the 3 arg for loop then I do not see much similarity.

> People reading this already know that both C and C++ are the two most
> important languages of all time. So much so that almost all other
> applications and languages (everything from COBOL to Python3) are
> now written in one or the other (usually the other).

"most important" is a very general term.

It may be true from the perspective of "what if all code written
in the language stopped working". Most widely used OS'es,
many compilers & runtime libraries and a lot of platform
software (databases, web servers, message queues, distributed
caches etc.) are written in C and/or C++. And almost everything
relies on that.

But I don't think it is true from a "what is their share of
the total IT landscape" perspective. From actual usage
today C and C++ are both tier 2 languages (tier 1 being
JavaScript, Python and Java - and tier 2 also including
C# and PHP). And for what should be used then I will
claim that C should rarely be used and C++ only rarely
be used - for the typical business application there are
better languages - and very few developers actually
write OS's, language runtime libraries, databases
and web servers.

> Unfortunately, the companies maintaining DEC-C and DEC-C++ over the
> years did not agree so those DEC products were not kept up-to-date.
> For example, both MySQL and MariaDB (after version 5.5) cannot be
> ported to OpenVMS (yet) because those database engines require a
> version of C/C++ known as C11.

> But like a bad dream, the problem now involves a moving target:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C11_(C_standard_revision)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C17_(C_standard_revision)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C2x [[[ C23 ??? ]]]

I believe DEC C++ is far worse than DEC C.

The C standard has not evolved that much and I would expect
most C Code to build with DEC C.

The C++ standard has evolved a lot and getting actively
maintained C++ code to build on VMS may very well be
impossible.

And based on internet gossip then I believe the problem with
both MySQL/MariaDB and OpenJDK are for C++ not for C.

So we wait for clang. :-)

And note that it is not just C and C++ that has been neglected
over the years. Fortran is also way behind. And Cobol even
though in that case I doubt there is much demand for the
new features.

Arne

On 2/23/2023 6:43 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> And C# is not like C at all. Besides using curly braces and
> having the 3 arg for loop then I do not see much similarity.
>
> Just compare the hello worlds:
>
> #include<stdio.h>
>
> int main()
> {
>     printf("Hello world!\n");
>     return 0;
> }
>
> VS:
>
> using System;
>
> public class HelloWorld
> {
>     public static void Main(string[] args)
>     {
>         Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
>     }
> }
>
> (C# pre-V9.0)

And in case someone wonder if C# 9.0 broke hello world.

The above hello world still compiles and run fine with
C# 9.0 and later.

But it can be written as:

using System;

Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");

:-)

Arne

On Friday, February 24, 2023 at 8:05:33 AM UTC-6, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 2/23/2023 6:43 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > And C# is not like C at all. Besides using curly braces and
> > having the 3 arg for loop then I do not see much similarity.
> >
> > Just compare the hello worlds:
> >
> > #include<stdio.h>
> >
> > int main()
> > {
> > printf("Hello world!\n");
> > return 0;
> > }
> >
> > VS:
> >
> > using System;
> >
> > public class HelloWorld
> > {
> > public static void Main(string[] args)
> > {
> > Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
> > }
> > }
> >
> > (C# pre-V9.0)
> And in case someone wonder if C# 9.0 broke hello world.
>
> The above hello world still compiles and run fine with
> C# 9.0 and later.
>
> But it can be written as:
>
> using System;
>
> Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
>
> :-)
>
> Arne
Maybe it's just me but if we are now arguing about the definition of C, C++, C#, C- and Cigar, we are no longer focused on migrating a COBOL application.

This makes my case, that converting COBOL to C (any C) for the purposes of a migration is a bad idea for anything beyond an intellectual exercise.

On 2/24/2023 12:28 PM, Denys Beauchemin wrote:
>
>
> This makes my case, that converting COBOL to C (any C) for the purposes of a migration is a bad idea for anything beyond an intellectual exercise.

Converting COBOL to anything other than COBOL for the purpose
of migration is a bad idea for anything beyond an intellectual
exercise.

bill

On Friday, February 24, 2023 at 12:03:11 PM UTC-6, bill wrote:
> On 2/24/2023 12:28 PM, Denys Beauchemin wrote:
> >
> >
> > This makes my case, that converting COBOL to C (any C) for the purposes of a migration is a bad idea for anything beyond an intellectual exercise.
> Converting COBOL to anything other than COBOL for the purpose
> of migration is a bad idea for anything beyond an intellectual
> exercise.
>
> bill
Truer words have never been written.

Anything other than COBOL is a short road to disaster.

Denys

On Friday, February 24, 2023 at 8:20:19 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-02-23, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I HELPED MY SON WITH C++ AND C# IN COLLEGE ... SAME OLD C SAME OLD COMPILER/DEBUGGER ISSUES
> If you consider C# to be in any way related to C, then you are _very_
> seriously delusional.
> Simon.
>
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

Back in the day when Dr. Dobbs was still being published, I recall seeing an article comparing Java to C#. The article contained two example programs ~ 250 lines each published side- by side. It was plain to see that C# appeared to be Microsoft's answer to Java.

Neil

On Friday, February 24, 2023 at 12:28:26 PM UTC-5, Denys Beauchemin wrote:
> On Friday, February 24, 2023 at 8:05:33 AM UTC-6, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > On 2/23/2023 6:43 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > > And C# is not like C at all. Besides using curly braces and
> > > having the 3 arg for loop then I do not see much similarity.
> > >
> > > Just compare the hello worlds:
> > >
> > > #include<stdio.h>
> > >
> > > int main()
> > > {
> > > printf("Hello world!\n");
> > > return 0;
> > > }
> > >
> > > VS:
> > >
> > > using System;
> > >
> > > public class HelloWorld
> > > {
> > > public static void Main(string[] args)
> > > {
> > > Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
> > > }
> > > }
> > >
> > > (C# pre-V9.0)
> > And in case someone wonder if C# 9.0 broke hello world.
> >
> > The above hello world still compiles and run fine with
> > C# 9.0 and later.
> >
> > But it can be written as:
> >
> > using System;
> >
> > Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
> >
> > :-)
> >
> > Arne
> Maybe it's just me but if we are now arguing about the definition of C, C++, C#, C- and Cigar, we are no longer focused on migrating a COBOL application.
>
> This makes my case, that converting COBOL to C (any C) for the purposes of a migration is a bad idea for anything beyond an intellectual exercise.

Agreed but let me add a few more thoughts.

I first used COBOL on an HP-3000 more than 40-years ago and would like to remind everyone here that a COBOL compiler license was always very expensive.. Heck, some companies like IBM hung their reputations on being able to run COBOL programs -AND- that their compilers produced the largest amount of executable binary which is backwards from the way we think today. IIRC, full ISAM support was an optional purchase on all PDP-11 operating systems from DEC, but then DEC decided to bundle it with VMS primarily to support the never released COBOL-80 standard (later appeared as COBOL-85).

comment: ISAM was important elsewhere on VMS including the fact that SYSUAF..DAT was indexed

I've only been working with Linux since 2016 but have been surprised about the quantity of good quality software in that eco-system which can be obtained for free. Anyone who has ever used gcc (gnu compiler collection) knows what I am typing about. This tool can generate C11 by the way.

(CAVEAT: the down side of opensource is that if you discover a bug, it may take years to get it fixed. In some instances you are better off fixing the problem yourself then submitting the solution to the authors. This has happened to me more times than one would think. This happened to me last week with the python SOAP library known as zeep)

Anyway, until Arne published this article, I did not know about GnuCOBOL so I used the yum/dnf tool on one of my Rocky Linux systems to install a copy.. It worked like a charm -AND- appears to contain a number gnu-specific extensions which can be enabled-disabled by command line switches (same as what you might see with gcc). Since I've been out of the COBOL game for a long while, I grabbed some old example programs which demo ISAM file creation. They worked like a charm as well (not sure if the ISAM support is built into GnuCOBOL or is dependent upon some already-installed system library). But this has been a very pleasurable nerdish adventure for me which cost several hours and zero dollars.

Your mileage may vary!

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
https://neilrieck.net/OpenVMS.html

On 2/25/2023 5:56 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Friday, February 24, 2023 at 8:20:19 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley
> wrote:
>> On 2023-02-23, ultr...@gmail.com <ultr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I HELPED MY SON WITH C++ AND C# IN COLLEGE ... SAME OLD C SAME
>>> OLD COMPILER/DEBUGGER ISSUES
>> If you consider C# to be in any way related to C, then you are
>> _very_ seriously delusional.
>
> Back in the day when Dr. Dobbs was still being published, I recall
> seeing an article comparing Java to C#. The article contained two
> example programs ~ 250 lines each published side- by side. It was
> plain to see that C# appeared to be Microsoft's answer to Java.

C# and Java are very similar. I don't think MS ever made a secret
of that.

* similar basic procedural syntax
* similar type system
* similar OO
* similar generics (added later)
* similar FP (added later)
* similar memory management
* similar runtime environment
* similar class libraries

When converting a piece of code between them sometimes
half the work is the different conventions regarding
capitalization of member names and location of starting
curly bracket.

:-)

There are of course also some differences. C# got
unsafe blocks with pointers (nobody use them),
C# got unsigned integers, .NET generics is different
from Java generics for simple types / value types
etc..

Arne

On 2/25/2023 7:00 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> Anyway, until Arne published this article, I did not know about
> GnuCOBOL so I used the yum/dnf tool on one of my Rocky Linux systems
> to install a copy. It worked like a charm -AND- appears to contain a
> number gnu-specific extensions which can be enabled-disabled by
> command line switches (same as what you might see with gcc). Since
> I've been out of the COBOL game for a long while, I grabbed some old
> example programs which demo ISAM file creation. They worked like a
> charm as well (not sure if the ISAM support is built into GnuCOBOL or
> is dependent upon some already-installed system library). But this
> has been a very pleasurable nerdish adventure for me which cost
> several hours and zero dollars.

GnuCOBOL comes in 3 flavors:
* indexed files support via BDB
* indexed files support via VBISAM
* no support for indexed files

You should check what flavor you got.

BDB may be sligtly better than VBISAM, but there are
different license situations:

BDB - AGPL or commercial license from Oracle (!)
VBISAM - LGPL

Many will not like a library under AGPL.

Arne

In article <06b86799-85d7-44e8-afa9-8b2fdddd50cen@googlegroups.com>,
Neil Rieck <n.rieck@bell.net> wrote:
>[snip]
>Since I've been out of the COBOL game for a long while,
>I grabbed some old example programs which demo ISAM file
>creation. They worked like a charm as well (not sure if
>the ISAM support is built into GnuCOBOL or is dependent
>upon some already-installed system library). But this
>has been a very pleasurable nerdish adventure for me
>which cost several hours and zero dollars.

By default, GnuCOBOL uses the Sleepycat/Oracle Berkeley DB
database library for indexed files, which means that the
resulting COBOL programs must be released under the terms of the
Affero GPL, which means you must give away the source code to
the COBOL program if you intend to distribute the binaries you
compile.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License)

However, some spelunking indicates you can use LMDB (the
"Lightening Memory Database") which has much more permissive
license terms as a backend.

- Dan C.

John Dallman <jgd@cix.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <ttd4ta$2j12a$2@dont-email.me>, arne@vajhoej.dk (Arne Vajh�j)
>wrote:
>
>> C# and Java are very similar. I don't think MS ever made a secret
>> of that.
>
>Microsoft started on .NET during their lawsuit with Sun over their
>incomplete-but-extended Java implementation. They seem to have hoped to
>replace Java with .NET.

Java is a whole bunch of things. It's an environment, it's a set of
libraries, and it's a programming language.

C#, ASP.NET, and ActiveX together sort of make up a thing that Microsoft
hoped would replace Java. C# and .NET had some degree of success anyway.

>> There are of course also some differences. C# got
>> unsafe blocks with pointers (nobody use them) ...
>
>The main thing those are useful for is calling native code. It's way
>easier than using JNI.

Which of course defeats the whole purpose of having a sandbox... but that's
Microsoft...
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 2/25/2023 4:32 PM, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <ttd4ta$2j12a$2@dont-email.me>, arne@vajhoej.dk (Arne Vajhøj)
> wrote:
>> C# and Java are very similar. I don't think MS ever made a secret
>> of that.
>
> Microsoft started on .NET during their lawsuit with Sun over their
> incomplete-but-extended Java implementation. They seem to have hoped to
> replace Java with .NET.

Yes.

>> There are of course also some differences. C# got
>> unsafe blocks with pointers (nobody use them) ...
>
> The main thing those are useful for is calling native code. It's way
> easier than using JNI.

I was not thinking about pointer type aka IntPtr, which are commonly
used for p/Invoke (DllImport).

Example:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace PtrTyp
{ public class Program
{
[DllImport("msvcrt.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr calloc(int numelm, int elmlen);
[DllImport("msvcrt.dll")]
public static extern void memset(IntPtr p, int val, int len);
[DllImport("msvcrt.dll")]
public static extern int printf(string fmt, IntPtr p);
[DllImport("msvcrt.dll")]
public static extern void free(IntPtr p);

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
IntPtr p = calloc(1, 4);
memset(p, 65, 3);
printf("%s\n", p);
free(p);
}
}
}

I was thinking about real star pointer.

Example:

using System;

namespace StarPtr
{ public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
int[] a = new int[4] { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
foreach(int ai in a)
{
Console.Write(" {0}", ai);
}
Console.WriteLine();
unsafe
{
fixed(int *p = &a[0])
{
for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
{
int *p2 = p + i;
Console.Write(" {0}", *p2);
}
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
}
}
}

The star pointer do not need to be used with p/Invoke (DllImport) but
they can be used - I just think it is very rare.

Example:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace Mixed
{ public class Program
{
[DllImport("msvcrt.dll")]
public static extern void memset(IntPtr p, int val, int len);
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
int a = 0;
unsafe
{
int *p = &a;
memset((IntPtr)p, 123, 1);
}
Console.WriteLine(a);
}
}
}

Arne

PS: Yes - p/Invoke (DllImport) is way easier than JNI.

On 2/25/2023 4:47 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> John Dallman <jgd@cix.co.uk> wrote:
>> In article <ttd4ta$2j12a$2@dont-email.me>, arne@vajhoej.dk (Arne Vajhøj)
>> wrote:
>>> C# and Java are very similar. I don't think MS ever made a secret
>>> of that.
>>
>> Microsoft started on .NET during their lawsuit with Sun over their
>> incomplete-but-extended Java implementation. They seem to have hoped to
>> replace Java with .NET.
>
> Java is a whole bunch of things. It's an environment, it's a set of
> libraries, and it's a programming language.

True.

Language, library and virtual machine. 3 separate specs.

> C#, ASP.NET, and ActiveX together sort of make up a thing that Microsoft
> hoped would replace Java.

I would say:

Java language = C#
Java library = .NET library
Java virtual machine = CLR
Java byte code = CIL
ASP.NET = front half of J2EE/Java EE/Jakarta EE
ActiveX = Java Beans

> C# and .NET had some degree of success anyway.

Absolutely.

>>> There are of course also some differences. C# got
>>> unsafe blocks with pointers (nobody use them) ...
>>
>> The main thing those are useful for is calling native code. It's way
>> easier than using JNI.
>
> Which of course defeats the whole purpose of having a sandbox... but that's
> Microsoft...

Java does not have the unsafe blocks and star pointers.

Java does have the ability to call native unsafe code via JNI (assuming
not blocked by a security manager).

But in some weird way then the fact that using JNI is about as
much fun as getting a root canal treatment at the dentist has
probably helped keeping most Java WORA.

Arne

On 2/25/2023 7:36 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> Java does have the ability to call native unsafe code via JNI (assuming
> not blocked by a security manager).
>
> But in some weird way then the fact that using JNI is about as
> much fun as getting a root canal treatment at the dentist has
> probably helped keeping most Java WORA.

Note that Java is getting a new way to call native code.
"Foreign functions" has been in preview in since Java 16.
I don't think it has been decided yet when it will be
deemed production ready - maybe Java 21 or 22.

Arne