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

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote:
> In article <006b1165$0$10103$c3e8da3 at news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
>> AEF wrote:
>>
>>> bash-3.00$ apropos copy
>>> /usr/share/man/windex: No such file or directory
>>
>> On OS-X, apropos copy yields a ton of information about all sorts of
>> subroutines that copy stuff. In there, the "cp" command is listed. I
>> assume cat is also in there somewhere. The output is basically useless
>> but does include the cp command.
>>
>>
>> Note that on VMS:
>>
>> $help cp yields "Sorry no information on CP". And there isn't an
>> "apropos" on VMS,
>>
>> Now instead of "cp", lets use "mkdir" or "rmdir". Those are ubuquitous
>> command used in both DOS and Unix. Yet, there is no easy way on VMS to
>> find out that you need to use CREATE/DIRECTORY to make one, and then:
> 
> 
> $ HELP 
>    Hints
>    Files_and_directories
> 
> (identifies both COPY and CREATE/DIRECTORY, as well as DELETE.  It does say
> under $ DELETE file that if the file you're deleting is a directory it has to
> be empty, which is at least a pretty good clue.)
> 
>>
>> SET file directoryname.dir /prot=(w:rwed)
>> SET FILE [.directory...]*.dir /prot=(w:rwed)
>> DEL [.directory...]*.*;* multiple times until the files are all gone
>> DEL directoryname.dir;
>>
>> In fact, I am not sure there is even a HELP entry on how to delete
>> directories on VMS.
> 
> It's under DELETE.
> 

FWIW, I don't think the either VMS or Unix were intended for the 
completely clueless!  DEC used to offer courses in DCL (not necessarily 
the title of the course) and VMS System Management.  I've had the System 
Management course.  I had to learn DCL by myself; it wasn't too difficult.

Deleting directories is not something a user normally needs to do.  It's 
made a little difficult to prevent users from making messes that the 
System Manager will have to clean up!  I was a System Manager for about 
twenty years and did have to clean up an occasional mess; some users are 
not easily discouraged!

On the Unix side, there were courses for Introduction and System 
Administration.  I've attended both.

I think VMS is easier to learn and retain simply because it uses English 
words as commands.  I've never seen VMS configured for a language other 
than English but I presume that it can be done and that DCL will 
understand the commands in French, German, Italian, Hebrew, Japanese, etc.