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From: sasaki@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax
Subject: speculation: why sys. services do not check # of arguments
Message-ID: <8701300901.AA26828@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 30-Jan-87 00:04:20 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8701300901.AA26828
Posted: Fri Jan 30 00:04:20 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Jan-87 06:21:38 EST
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The reason that system services have a fixed length is entirely one of
programming style. The folks who wrote VMS were used to RSX-11M, which
had system services with a fixed number of arguments. RSX-11D (and IAS
too) had system services with variable argument lists.

Speed is not a major consideration, it doesn't take that much time to
figure out how many arguments there are. As an example, take the new
logical name services. Logical names get translated all of the time,
yet both crelnm and trnlnm have item lists which have to be figured
out every time.
----------------
  Marty Sasaki				uucp:   harvard!sasaki
  Ziff Davis Technical Information Co.	arpa:	sasaki@harvard.harvard.edu
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