In 1988 I wrote the procedure EEX.COM (after clicking on this link, one can view it in a text editor, or save it to disk) that was quite useful for program development (debugging) in VMS on standard terminals. It makes an infinite cycle through editing, compilation, linking and execution of a program. I am still using it when I occasionally modify programs running under VMS. A simpler version is EX.COM that includes only one cycle of compilation, linking and execution (e.g., one can start an editor in one window, and periodically call EX in another window).
Information on how to use these procedures is given at the beginning of
the above files. It is assumed that the following two symbols are defined:
EE == "@[path]EEX.COM" and EX == "@[path]EX.COM",
where [path] is
the (full) VMS directory name where the given procedure is stored.
Then invoking 'EE ?', or 'EX ?' should give
enough information on how to use them.
The above version of EEX.COM uses the now standard VMS editor EDIT. Originally I used my favorite older VMS editor called SED which had a nice feature that on a subsequent invocation it opened a file where it finished last time. I could also provide you with the old version of EEX.COM using SED. However, SED doesn't seem to be available for the Alpha VMS Digital workstations, only for the old VAXes.