Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cca!mirror!rayssd!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!cunyvm!unknown From: rrk@byuvax.bitnet Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Subject: Re: Are VMS and VAX synonymous (Was: Re: VMS games) Message-ID: <39rrk@byuvax.bitnet> Date: Sat, 5-Dec-87 14:18:38 EST Article-I.D.: byuvax.39rrk Posted: Sat Dec 5 14:18:38 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 10:40:32 EST Lines: 26 It is obvious that VMS is the operating system of the VAX just as DOS isthe operating system of the PC. Sure, they both run UNIX. But I'd like to see a UNIX cluster, not that one couldn't be created with some copying of basic operating system concepts from VMS, just as has been done in many other cases for Ultrix and which we have been promised more of in the future. And is Fortran the language of VMS? That's a similar question. No language exists totally without influence from the other languages around it. You might say that everyone initially borrowed from Fortran or Cobol, but now it only serves for compatibility. Standard fortran is missing lots of things that it hasn't gotten around to borrowing from more advanced languages. Thanks partially to the primativeness of this standard Fortran, and the beauty of VAX assembly, the average length of a program, except for expression evaluation, may well be shorter in MACRO32. MACRO32 is the only language found on all VMS VAX's. Certainly Universities will cling to Fortran. It was there when the professors went to school. I have never been at a non-university site that had fortran. But nearly all the non-university sites I've been at have VAX C. I learned Fortran in school 15 years ago, when it was a standard. But I abandoned it long before the VAX hit the scene. The only people I know who tolerate fortran are Engineering students. I've worked on 15 VAX CPU's in the past 7 years. The only one with Fortran was the only University I worked at. Fortran and Cobol are a little like Latin and French. They are both very established in certain environments, but I would never classify either one as being "The Language".