Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!INDYVAX.BITNET!IMHW400
From: IMHW400@INDYVAX.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re:  External definitions for SYS$, RTL$ etc...
Message-ID: <8801091111.AA04662@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 8 Jan 88 14:06:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 29

The lack of COMPLETE definitions of system facilities and structures for
the non-MACRO, non-BLISS programmer really bugs me, too.  It is possible
to find all the definitions in the proper .MLB and .REQ files, but I've
had to do the translations (mostly to C) myself.  It seems that the basketful
of scraps that have been thrown to us C programmers *never* includes the
symbols that I wanted (GETUAI/SETUAI, PSM, SMB, etc.).  I am slowly building
up a library of .H files for these things (tinkered up from the MACRO modules
with an editor and much elbow grease), but this is obviously a fragile and
temporary solution.

I think that the trouble is that SDL, which is used to create the definitions
for MACRO and BLISS, has never been completely extended to support other
languages.  Part of the reason for this is that it would be a *lot* of hard
work in some cases, and perhaps impossible in others.  If you look hard
enough, you can probably find .SDL sources on your system; think about how
one might translate SDL to C, including all the nasty masks and bits....
On the other hand, the result would quite possibly be worth the effort,
buying a lot of customer goodwill.  (DEC persons should feel free to comment
if allowed.)

Bottom line:  DEC, please extend SDL to *all* supported languages, or find
some other way to allow us to build tools in the language best suited to
the task.  (Maybe extend CDD?)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mark H. Wood    IMHW400@INDYVAX.BITNET   (317)274-0749 III U   U PPPP  U   U III
Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis  I  U   U P   P U   U  I
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