Xref: utzoo comp.sys.intel:505 comp.lang.misc:1786
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!elroy!mahendo!jplgodo!seila!don
From: don@seila.UUCP (Don Kossman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: PL/M
Summary: use C
Keywords: software development
Message-ID: <373@seila.UUCP>
Date: 25 Aug 88 06:35:51 GMT
References: <17377@gatech.edu>
Reply-To: don@seila.UUCP (Don Kossman)
Followup-To: comp.sys.intel
Organization: SEI Information Technology, LA, CA
Lines: 37

In article <17377@gatech.edu> ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes:
>It is my understanding that PL/M is (or was) the system programming language
>of choice for the iAPX processors.
>
>Can someone offer critical commentary as to the suitibility of PL/M as
>system programming language over, say, C?

i've used both PL/M and C to do system programming directly on
Intel iron and using iRMX-[2]86.  There is absolutely NO reason to use
PL/M; it just happens to have been the first language beyond asm86 
that Intel developed.  It's got a few built-ins to handle segment
descriptors, I/O registers, and interrupt procedures, but these 
may be easily constructed in assembler in a few hours and may then
be forgotten.  It may also still be true that Intel only provides
complete iRMX interface libraries for PL/M; again, it is simple
to write the required assembler routines and then do everything
in C.  (I probably still have these around, let me know if you
need them).

PL/M has rotten floating point support, and NO I/O or function 
libraries comparable to stdio and the other standard C libraries.
(imagine life without printf...)

In addition, it has a verbose syntax compared to C, no "default"
in the switch/case statement, no break or continue constructs,
and numerous other irritating properties.  The only advantage
it used to have was stronger typechecking of function parameters,
but ansi C fixes that.

To top it off, there is no string type; strings must be treated
as arrays of bytes and are not null-terminated.  This is a complete
pain in the you-know-what.

C is far and away a better choice.

-- 
Don Kossman, SEI Information Technology, Los Angeles
usenet:  ...sun!tsunami!seila!don, ...uunet!mahendo!jplgodo!seila!don