[Info-vax] "Shanghai Stock Exchange" and OpenVMS

[AEF]

On Jan 23, 9:38 am, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> In article <05b548fd-8d1f-48c9-80c4-777bf5f6c... at q35g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
>         AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > On Jan 22, 8:41 pm, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> >> In article <abd32391-46d6-49e4-aa1c-58d74dcc7... at p2g2000prn.googlegroups.com>,
> >>         AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> writes:
> >> > On Jan 22, 3:31 pm, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> >> >> In article <CKqdnel_5rWYS-XUnZ2dnUVZ_v_in... at giganews.com>,
> >> >>         "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net> writes:
>
> >> >> > Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> >> >> >> In article <0005d0dd$0$2088$c3e8... at news.astraweb.com>,
> >> >> >>        JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> writes:
> >> >> >>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>
> >> >> >>>> You can safely plug them in and turn them on.  It's when you connect
> >> >> >>>> them to a network that you have to worry about "electronic organisms"
> >> >> >>>> infecting your Windows systems.
> >> >> >>> This week's virus can be transmitted when you plug in an USB key.
>
> >> >> >>> Sony managed to infect Windows machines when the user inserted a MUSIC
> >> >> >>> CD into the machines (that rootkit thing).
>
> >> >> >>> So leaving a Windows box unconnected to a network is not a garantee that
> >> >> >>>  it won't be infected.
>
> >> >> >> And all of these exploits can be prevented by proper configuration of
> >> >> >> Windows.
>
> >> >> >> bill
>
> >> >> > And how many people know how to "properly configure Windows"???
>
> >> >> How many know how to "properly configure VMS"?
>
> >> >> > Where is this "proper configuration" documented?  The last time I looked
> >> >> > Windows was shipping without any "documentation".
>
> >> >> Well, you can get docs from NIST specifically covering security.  And then
> >> >> there are the checklists from DISA that are publicly available.  And, being
> >> >> as we are talking about supposed professionals in major corporations and
> >> >> not your momma's PC,  if they don't already know where to find this stuff
> >> >> they certainly should know how to go out and find it.  Even Google finds
> >> >> piles of references including the stuff from NIST.
>
> >> >> - Show quoted text -
>
> >> > Hi Bill,
>
> >> > Well, it sounds like Windows PC's/servers come seriously misconfigured
> >> > right out of the box! And it appears to be a rather big deal to
> >> > configure them properly.
>
> >> Yes, they are misconfigured badly right out of the box and no, it is
> >> not a big deal to fix that.  Especially for someone claiming to be a
> >> professional.
>
> >> >                           Is this true for other OSes?
>
> >> Depends on who you ask.  The OpenBSD folks think all the others come
> >> misconfigured.  :-)
>
> >> >                                                        Is VMS seriously
> >> > misconfigured right out of the box?
>
> >> Who would know?  Most of the VMS systems I have seen are pretty much
> >> useless (from a user standpoint) right out of the box.  You have to
> >> do a lot that is not needed on other systems before a user can do
> >> anything with it.
>
> > Wait a minute. Are you limiting this discussion to front-end and home
> > use? What about VMS as a back-end?
>
> No, backend machines have users, too.  What's a machine without users? A
> doorstop?  But, "right out of the box" VMS has no applications at all.
> Oh wait, I guess you get TPU.

A back-end without a front-end!

So get some apps! And how is the average user going to do anything
with Unix? And what apps come with Unix? Just asking. And no, I don't
consider awk to be an app any more than VMS's SORT.

What do you get on Windows? Crappy apps. . . . OK, at least one is
pretty good: Calculator. It's actually better than what comes with OS
X! And so is its Spell Check.

I'm not familiar with Windows servers. What apps do they have? And
Unix? Just asking.

> >> > With VMS you can get security info right out of the manuals that come
> >> > with it!
>
> >> What manuals?  Oh, you mean on the CD.  And how does the user get at those?
> >> They are locked in the sysmanager desk.  :-)  And, to be quite honest, I
> >> have never found the VMS manuals to be all that readable or easy to
> >> locate things in.  Guess it depends on the style of manuals you are used
> >> to.
>
> > Well, I thought the User Manuals were pretty good (except for logical
> > name access modes and that stuff about SPAWN and "non-record-oriented
> > process-permament files (NRO PPFs)". I found the Manager manuals a
> > little worse and was not happy with the Programmer manuals, but only
> > because they one I used -- the one that described system services,
> > like translating a DCL symbol or logical name in Fortran or other
> > languauge of that level -- doesn't tell you which modules you have to
> > include! If you're lucky, there's an example to show you. Maybe the
> > other P manuals are better.
>
> Like I said, probably depends on what your used to.  I have never found the
> VMS manuals particularly usable.  I can usually figure it out, but I am
> much more likely to find an answer using Google than a manual.

Ah, so you were just born with knowledge such as DEFINE/SYSTEM/
EXECUTIVE, DEFINE/USER_MODE, EVE, NRO PPF's, symbol substitution
operaters, . . . C'mon, you must have read about them somewhere.

[...]
> >> > This reminds me of one of my main gripes about Windows: no
> >> > documentation to browse. What I mean by "browse" is not to look for
> >> > help on fixing a particular problem you happen to have, but to just
> >> > read something like the VMS User's manual and just learn what the OS
> >> > can do and how to do it. For example, with Windows' Outlook Advanced
> >> > Find, you can put semicolons between search words and it changes the
> >> > Boolean logic from AND to OR. How do I know this? I happened to
> >> > stumble across it in a document written by someone who has nothing to
> >> > do with Microsoft and was writing about some other particular topic
> >> > (It might have been "Escape from the Mousetrap. I'll hunt it down
> >> > later . . . maybe.) Who knows what other cool features we don't know
> >> > about? What secret Microsoft doc even mentions this and if there is
> >> > such, why should I have to, and how would I know to, hunt for it? And
> >> > where's the secret documentation for all the MS-DOS commands, esp. the
> >> > MS-DOS commands I don't even know exist until a Windows Admin tells me
> >> > in response to a question I have for which I don't even know that the
> >> > answer is to run some secret MS-DOS command (not to mention the fact
> >> > that I need to use the MS-DOS command window in the first place!)?
>
> >> Funny, I have the same resources as everyone else and I haven't
> >> had any problem finding answers.  Sure, they don't come with
>
> > What answers are you talking about? I gave a specific example of the
> > secret semicolon operator in Adavanced Find. Just which Windows
> > manual, be it a Web page, CD, barn door, or what have you, can you
> > learn this secret in? How did you even know there was such a secret to
> > know?! I'm not talking about troubleshooting. I'm talking about
> > learning about features that aren't obvious, such as the semicolon
> > operator.
>
> I thought we were talking about securing Windows.  I have never needed
> to do more than a superficial search on Windows so I really don't know
> anything about the syntax and have never searched for help with it.

I started this part with

"> >> > This reminds me of one of my main gripes about Windows: no
> >> > documentation to browse. What I mean by "browse" is not to look for
..."

Therefore, we were not talking about securing Windows.

> > With the VMS CD or the docs on the Net,
>
> On the net?  Isn't that where I said to look for Windows information?

I think we're missing some context here. See below. Besides, there's a
difference between scouring the Net or even the MS site compared to
the VMS docs. Where on the MS pages can you read all the features,
including secret ones, about Outlook or even just its Advanced Find?
If there is, I'm all ears.

>
> >                                         you can at least peruse them
> > and learn all the commands and utilities and such and what they do.
>
> Maybe you can, but as i said, I have never found the format of the
> VMS docs to be all that clear or usable.  YMMV.

OK.

>
> > Can you do this with Windows? What can I read (and where) that
> > documents all the secrets such as the semicolon operator, the NET
> > STATISTICS command, e.g.?
>
> Probably on the same "Net" you said to use for VMS.  Microsoft has
> thousands of webpages although I usually tend to find what I need
> elswhere as their docs aren't any better than VMS's.  I have always

But what about to find out about stuff that's useful but you don't
know about? I don't see how you can do that with MS unless you
actually want to sit down and read ALL or the VAST MAJORITY of those
thousands of webpages. What do I search for: "Secret operators I have
no idea exist".

> favored the docs i get from O'Reilly.  And, yes, I have bought real
> documentation from MS.  They do have it if you want to spend the money.
> And before you throw out that it comes "free" with VMS, compare the prices
> of the two OSes.  then tell me that anything extra comes free.

Well, what about Help? VMS HELP would not omit something like the
semicolon operator in Advanced Find. Windows Help? I find it often not
to be of any help at all.

> >                             What other features like the semicolon are
> > most of us missing because we have to hope we stumble across them? I'm
> > talking about a reference or manual -- such as the DCL Dictionary or
> > the User's Manual -- that documents all these features . . . for
> > USERs, not system admins.
>
> "Windows XP in a Nutshell"?  :-)

The online VMS manuals would have stuff like the semicolon operator
written in the section or chapter about something like Advanced Find.
Do any of those thousands of Windows pages on the Net have a chapter
or section documenting Advanced Find? Does the help in Advanced Find
mention the semicolon operator? The HELP in VMS would about any
similar such thing.

> > > real books.  That's nothing new.  AT&T stopped delivering books
> >> with Unix at SYS V.  You bought your documentation from Prentice-
> >> Hall.  Same is tru of Windows.  Therea re a lot of sources for
> >> books if you really want them.  I guess it's a matter of keeping
> >> the cost down.  VMS used to ship with real books but no longer does.
> >> Now it comes with one set of documentation CD's which are seldom,
> >> if ever, available outside the datacenter.  And the one real big
> >> difference is there are no third party books on VMS available at
> >> places like Barnes & Noble.
>
> > OK, what book would I have to buy to have learn about the semicolon
> > operator; the fact that there *is* such an operator (otherwise how
> > would I even know to hunt it down); and other well-kept, possibly
> > useful, secret comands, operators, and what have you?
>
> Never having looked for that particular concept, I can't possibly say.
> But I would guess one of the O'Reilly "Nutshell" books would probably
> have it.

You can't look for it if you don't know it exists. I simply want the
Help in the program to mention all such things so that I don't have to
go to the Net, I don't have to go to Barnes and Noble or Amazon or
Google or the secret barn or whatever and scour thousands of pages
just to find the answer to this very simple question. Why can't it
just be right there in the help? Is it a big deal to put the in the
Help?

> >> > Even OS X has this problem. That's why you need the David Pogue books
> >> > (well, at least one of them). I guess home computers just don't come
> >> > with docs like VMS (and I'm sure other OSes) has -- stuff you can just
> >> > sit down and read and learn all the features about all the commands
> >> > (well, mostly).
>
> >> How do you "just sit down and read"?  I last set of actual VMS books I
> >> are at least 10 years old.  Now, if you can afford the tomer and paper
> >> I suppose you could print your own, but it wan't that long ago even
> >> these only came in bookreader format and could not be printed.
>
> > You can read the manuals on the Net. OK, it's not as comfrotable as
> > reading them in print.
>
> How do you read them on the net when your are trying to get your VMS
> system set up and all you have is a VT420 as  a terminal?  Or did we
> forget that by default VMS has no user applications?  In any event,
> if your resource for VMS is the net, why can't you accept the same for
> Windows or even Unix?

DECwindows.

So it has no "user apps". So what? Does Unix? (just asking, and no, I
don't consider awk to be an app any more than VMS's SORT.) So get some
frickin' apps!

Because what's on the Net for Windows doesn't do what I ask. I just
did a quick look and found a stupid slide show I don't know how to run
without downloading stuff. And clicking on "search options" in the
text that was on that page gave me an ad for stock options. There's
quality for ya! I want something to read. I don't want a stupid slide
show to sit through (after downloading who knows what stupid viewer/
flash/quicktime/realplayer apps), or a DVD, or a cassette tape, or
movie, forums to weed through, clueless support people (I think there
are more of them than there are guitarists!), etc. Just put it in the
frickin' help and be done with it so I can look it up quickly and get
on with life.

Another site tells me about this 400-page book on Outlook I can buy.
400 pages? Yeah, I'm going to sit down and read 400 pages just for
Outlook. And buy it no less, for one stinking app! And then there's
the triple-yellow-sticker problem. No thanks.

> >                        But I actually did this once at a physics lab I
> > was visiting. I had to copy a whole bunch of tapes. And each took
> > about 10 min. So I had nothing to do between tapes. So, to take
> > advantage of this waiting time I read everything that looked useful or
> > interesting in the DCL dictionary and the EDT reference manual. I made
> > a big step forward that day.
>
> And considering how ulikely I would be to actually need any of that
> information I would have considered it a waste of time.  If I need
> to read to kill time Tom Clancy is much more useful.

For me it was very useful as I was a beginner, newbie, or what have
you. It seemed that everyone else in the physics group knew a lot more
than I did. So I wanted to catch up. Life was better.

> >> A lot of this stuff does not look nearly as rosy to outsiders as people
> >> here seem to think.
>
> > Whatever.
>
> You know, that's usually what I hear whenever I try to tell outsiders about
> VMS.  :-)  They all see it pretty much the same as they see my PDP-11's.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

>
> bill
>
> --
> Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
> billg... at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
> University of Scranton   |
> Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

AEF