info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA (07/27/85)
From: Kevin Carosso <engvax!KVC@cit-vax>
SDL stands for something like (Symbol Definition Language)
or something like it. Basically it's how the DEC people
stay sane designating all the FOO$BLECH symbols in VMS.
They define them in a language that assigns the values
and then provide processors that can create declarations for
the various language products.
New with VMS V4: at VMSINSTAL time, the declarations for
the particular language you are installing are created by
something called SDLNPARSE to reflect the current state of
system symbols. Neat trick, too bad they don't give us SDL
(or whatever they really use) so we can stay sane designing
our own FOO_BLECH symbols (only DECies get to use the "$").
/Kevin Carosso engvax!kvc @ CIT-VAX.ARPA
ps. Check out the ufiche for .SDL files if you want to see
what one looks like. Try MAIL, I've read MAIL cover to
cover (yuck) and know it has one...info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA (07/27/85)
From: Provan@LLL-MFE.ARPA I was told that SDL stood for "Spitbrook Definition Language" to differentiate it from "Maynard Definition Language" (MDL), which was its predecessor, although I'm not surprised they're trying to make it sound better now. And I think it's downright criminal they don't provide it with VMS.