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

[AEF]

On Jan 29, 10:00 am, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> In article <ba9770e9-3ef4-4ff7-ad21-cbd65e08b... at n2g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
>         AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > On Jan 28, 11:44 am, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> >> In article <b9489278-4168-437b-85e5-fff095da5... at l38g2000vba.googlegroups.com>,
> >>         AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> >> As I have said in the past, (and aparently at least Michael agrees) it's
> >> all a matter of opinion as I find quite the opposite.
> > OK.
>
> >> >                       And the ones I have usually show several versions
> >> > of the same command with the differences specified in the name of the
> >> > command via different paths. You know: path1/cp, path2/cp, etc., where
> >> > path1 and path2 may be very similar in appearance. Which one is the
> >> > one I will be running if I just specify cp? (This is intuitive?)
>
> >> It is to people who use Unix for a living.  And, apparently college
> >> freshman.
> > OK, it was late night when I've been posting these things. OK, it's
> > the one that's in the PATH. I'm just starting and for some reason I'm
> > just not in the Unix PATH frame of mind yet. (Maybe it's in part
> > because I hate the PATH trains!) But why the multiple versions of some
> > commands? Why the following?
> > SYNOPSIS
> >      /usr/bin/ls  [-aAbcCdeEfFghHilLmnopqrRstuvVx1@] [file]...
> >      /usr/xpg4/bin/ls  [-aAbcCdeEfFghHilLmnopqrRstuvVx1@]
> >      [file]...
> >      /usr/xpg6/bin/ls  [-aAbcCdeEfFghHilLmnopqrRstuvVx1@]
> >      [file]...
> > Why three versions?
>
> My guess would be backwarsd compatability.  We already determined you
> use Solaris.  If you knew anything at all about Sun you would knoe that
> they have made major changes in their OS.  SunOS was strictly BSD based
> with a few SYSVisms provided.  Then came Solaris.  Totally SYSV.  But,
> Sun kept a number of BSDish utilities and commands around so as to not
> break totally break scripts that people had already on their systems.
> I have no idea what "xpg" is so I can't tell you what this particular
> set does.

Thanks for the history lesson. No, I didn't know. You're right,
though: If I knew, I would have known.

> >> > Someone at work showed me a website which reformmated the man pages
> >> > into something much easier to read. Can't be just me who finds the
> >> > original man pages visually difficult to read.
> >> > Also, I find English words much more intuitive and actually mostly, if
> >> > not partly, self explanatory.
>
> >> Once again, matter of opinion. And really rather Anglo-centric, don't
> >> you think?  So, then, how useful was VMS in Germany or France?
> > How useful is the term "awk" in any language!
>
> Yeahy, well 'awk" is kind of an exception.  And given the stature of the
> people involved, they should be allowed some idiosyncracies.  The letters
> in "awk" are the initials of its creators Aho, Weinberger & Kernighan.

OK, minor point.

> >                                               At least VMS words are
> > somewhat self-evident in one language! In what language are cp, rm,
> > mkdir, awk, sed, mv and such just normal words?
>
> With the exception of awk, as explained above, all of them.  Or are you
> one of those people who can't read vanity license plates either?  Every
> one of them is an abbreviation.  Do you know what PA, MD, VA, DC, etc.
> all mean?  How about lb., oz., amp.?  And just as further justification
> for even "awk", just what exactly did the word "ohm" have to do with
> resistance?

I was commenting on your claim about VMS words being useless in other
languauges.

I can read vanity license plates most of the time. The real message is
that they have too much time and money on their hands. What a waste! I
suppose these people by lottery tickets too.

Yes: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virgina, Wash. D.C.

Alright! 'awk' is okay. Sheeesh.

>
> >                                                  So by your criterion,
> > Unix isn't useful in any language!
>
> As I have said earlier.  The biggest problem with trying to explain
> anything about Unix in this neighborhood is trying to get by the
> anti-Unix bias.  Thus my recent comment about a Babbage quote.  But
> then, Babbage didn't use VMS so maybe nobody here has ever seen the
> quote I am refering to.  :-)

Well, with the exception of one poster, it's often the case that it's
a little painful (or annoying) when first learning a new system and
encountering things that are easy on the old system. I had this
problem when I bought a Mac. There are a number of things that Windows
does better than OS X. And one thing that Firefox does better than
Safari. But admittedly, there is one thing Safari does better than
Firefox! But when I get back to a Windows system I get much more
annoyed! So I don't regret having bought a Mac.

> >> >                               I don't find that to be the case for 1-
> >> > and 2-letter commands and options. VMS commands and qualifiers and
> >> > keywords and such are mostly self-evident as to what they more or less
> >> > do or specify, aside from the fine details.
>
> >> Nothing about computers is "self-evident".  It's a business with its own
> >> jargon and terminology.  I mean, why do those doctors use words like
> >> "apendicitis" and "carcinoma"?  Why don't they just use English like
> >> everyone else?
> > To keep us in the dark. You see, the doctors take a special course to
> > write illegibly and the pharmacists take the corresponding course to
> > decode it!
>
> Ah yes, another urban legend.  Actually, most doctors I know have much
> better handwritting than I have and the reason ordinary people coldn't
> read what the doctor wrote was because it was in Latin.  I have no
> problem reading doctors notes.  especially as they move more and more
> to english anyway.

Admittedly, only about half of the prescriptions I get are difficult
to read. I was half-joking to boot. Really, I wasn't serious about the
courses!

>
> >            Actually, there is a real need for such strange words as
> > normal English words simply don't suffice for all the numerous medical
> > terms needed. The same isn't true for CLI commands. We're not talking
> > organic chemistry or here.
>
> No, we are talking inertia.  If you truly feel that a new shell that uses
> pure english words is needed, bey all means, feel free to write one.  But
> don't be too disappointed when it becomes about as popular as the X-windows
> Window Manager that mimiced Windows98.  :-)

I was explaining why doctors don't "just use English like everyone
else" and just that. You asked a specific question, and I gave you a
specific answer. Inertia has nothing to do with it.

I also said there's more to an OS than how "intuitive" or "easy to
remember" its language is. But we were focusing on that.

[...]
> >> And if I were a professional photographer, I would have done that in the
> >> process of becoming a professional photographer.  What's your point?
> > I'm not really sure. I think we've gotten to the point where none of
> > us actually know just what we're arguing over. In this instance I was

Well, more precisely: We're arguing about slightly different aspects
and don't realize it!

> > trying to show through photography what it's like in another context
> > to learn new terms if said terms are described in "English words" as
> > VMS is. As I said, not all photography terms are self-evident, and
> > some are only partly self-evident.
>
> And to a practitioner of the art, Unix commands are also perfectly clear.

Once you learn them. So what's your point?

[...]

> >> > It's only reasonable anywhere a user starts work to have a local
> >> > source of how to get started, be it a tutorial session; a newbie
> >> > manual, "local guide" (Latex style name), a primer, or whatever you
> >> > want to call it; or something else. And that's true more generally:
>
> >> We used to do that, but found it unnecessary more than a decade ago.
> > Need specifics here. Do users not have to be given usernames and
> > passwords, for example?
>
> Sure, but we certainly don't need a book to tell them what it is, :-)
> Professor stands up ion the front of the first class and tell them.
> Used to have to hand out little slips of paper, but usernames are
> now intuitive and common across all campus comouting resources so it
> got easier.
>
> >                         Users who have never used Unix before somehow
> > become instantly productive on day 1?
>
> Pretty much.  They use the resources on the system to learn what
> they need to know.  Anything special (like how to invoke the Prolog
> compiler) is given to them by their professors.   It's not like none
> of them have ever seen a computer before.

And how does that start? OK, the newbie manages to log in. Then what
does he do?

> >                                       I suppose these users could also
> > do brain surgery on day 1 without having gone through medical school.
> > Just look it up what you need with Google!
>
> Yet another typically absurd comparison.  That's like saying they can't
> drive cars because they don't know how to program the on board computer.
> Different things require different levels of knowledge.  Being a simple
> user requires very limited knowledge.  By the time they are seniors, they
> know how the kernel and the filesystem really work.  They don't need that
> knowledge to edit "hello.c".

Kernel and filesystems? Maybe computer science majors. Biology majors,
e.g., learn how a kernel works? Huh? How many of us need to know
that?

> >> > When you start a job, someone shows you around, right? And show's you
> >> > the ropes, so to speak, right? And what you're expected to do, right?
>
> >> Not anytime lately.  I am a professional and when I am hired it is
> >> expected that I will walk up to my desk and begin functioning right
> >> away.  That's what separates the professional from the intern.
> > Sorry, bad term: "the ropes". I meant that you are told which desk is
> > yours, what your phone number is, where to get your badge, what your
> > responsibilities are, what software is running on what, what your
> > usernames and passwords are, whom you report to, etc. I suppose you
> > show up on day 1 with this all telepathically absorbed or you Google
> > it.
>
> Not the same level of knowledge as how to edit a file in Unix.  At no
> job I have ever had has someone ever sat me dowm and said, "Here is how
> you log into the system."  I have recently been given access to yet another

I never said that.

> pair of systems.  I received my Usernames and Passwords in separate emails.
> And that was all. It is considered my responsibility to locate the systems
> and log into them and, use them.  I don't even know what kind of system
> they are or what OS they are running.  Because of my level of experience,
> it is expected that I will be able to do my job.

Use them to do what?

And you somehow know who needs what and when?

> > Again, apologies for using the wrong term. I was thinking more
> > generally.
>
> >> I have been doing this professionally for over 30 years.  I have had
> >> to learn new langauages, new OSes and new architectures.  No one has
> >> ever offered to hold my hand.  I have been given tasks and, as a
> > That's what I should have said instead of "showing you the ropes"
> > which, come to think of it, isn't totally inappropriate. "The ropes",
> > besides just being given some tasks (which I would think would have to
> > include particulars of your new work environment that you almost
> > certainly wouldn't know ahead of time), could be a description of how
> > things work at your new workplace.
>
> Places i have worked have, based on the claims on my resume, always
> assumed I could be pointed at a desk and I would get to work.  I have
> never been asked, "Can you do X or should we give that task to someone
> else?"  I have been handed tasks involving programming languages I have
> never used with the expectation that I will acquire the knowledge needed
> to do the job.  That is precisely how and why I learned Pascal.

Finally we're getting somewhere. You're given specific tasks! Until
now you've been saying all you need is a username and a password and
access some systems and you're ready to go!

>
> >                                      When I started work at a particular
> > non-profit organization in the 90s, "customers" and employees had to
> > fill in forms and they had people type in this form data on a machine
> > similar to a keypunch, but it uploaded the data to an IBM machine, on
> > which we ran some secret commands dictated to me by a guy who looked
> > and talked like Elmer Fudd, then copied the massaged data to a 9-track
> > tape, loaded that tape on a tape drive hooked up to a pdp11/70 (of
> > which we had four for various purposes), which from there was
> > Permitted to a VAXcluster, which then ran through some third-party,
> > possibly home-grown app, and then finally something was printed on the
> > old green-bar paper which would never fold properly on its own. And
> > then there was the secret box buried God knows where in the cabs on
> > which you had to use some really strange incantation of commands and
> > various knob settings for different modes (all of which were cryptic)
> > to broadcast to the users that things were down and intentionally
> > write that the machine was expected to be up in an hour (we put down
> > an absolute time, not "1 hour"), when we in fact knew that it would be
> > several hours at best. So we had to update it every hour. I asked my
> > supervisor if we could just be honest about it say "sometime later
> > today" but he said no, we have to do it this way.
> > Now you are going to show up to work day 1 and somehow already know
> > all this?
>
> Sorry, i diodn't see anything odd about that envirnment.  :-)  Actually,
> if this was a real job, I would likely have left the interview with a
> "Thank you, but no thank you."

First of all, the interview didn't go into that much detail. Second, I
didn't have much choice at the time.

>
> >            You're going to waste "precious company time" trying to
> > learn this on your own? Are you going to pour through manuals we
> > didn't have (well, maybe we did)
>
> You mean like VMS here, when I first started?  There were manuals, but
> not any place a regular user could get at them.

You lost me. I was referring the non-profit job.

>
> >                                  about an IBM OS from the distant past
> > with disk drives taller than most people just to figure out what the
> > three or four secret commands you need are instead of letting Elmer
> > Fudd simply tell you? You're going to find that secret, tiny box and
> > the correct keyboard (or whatever it was) on your own while employees
> > are left in the dark as to when the system will be back up. (Which, as
> > you just read, was the case anyway! But at least they got _some_
> > message.)
>
> No, I'm not.  Professionalism works both ways.  I doubt very seriously
> that place was paying enough to work for them in a hokey operation like
> that.

There's a problem learning three or four secret commands to process
some data on a system you're not responsible for? And how would you
have set up that secret box? BTW, you're right about the pay. I soon
landed a much better job.

> > It's things like this and which desk is yours and all that other stuff
> > above that I meant by "showing you the ropes". I didn't mean that you
> > become a Unix apprentice. I meant that you are shown the particulars
> > of your new work environment. Again, I apologize for having used the
> > misleading term.
>
> When I started with Martin Marietta, they used PROFS on an IBM mainframe
> for all their in-house communications.  I was not asked if I knew how to
> use MVS or PROFS.  I was given an account and told, "This is what we use."

And?

> In 1979 I had my first formal programming education.  It was COBOL on
> VM-370 running DOS/E.  I left the school on the Friday before Labor Day
> weekend of 1979.  I reported into my new job on the following Tuesday.
> I was put to work doing COBOL and Fortran on a Univac-11 running Exec-8.
> Trust me, there is no similarity between these two systems.  :-)  I was
> not sent off to school.  I was not given a batch of manuals.  And, there
> was no Web.  I was expected to get myself up to speed and become productive.
> The alternative would have been to be sent of to some other location which
> might not have been as nice as this one was.  When I first came here, to
> the University, I came into the reation of a one man shop.  There was

What is "reation"?

> no one to "show me the ropes".  If you have someone holding your hand
> for the first couple weeks every place you have ever worked, you have
> worked in places quite different from mine.

I thought I already explained about my poor choice of terms. How many
times do I have to tell you? :-)

>
> And when I take my next job, I expect they will have determined from the
> interview that when I get there i will "hit the ground running".  Otherwise,
> why would they hire me?

Too vague.

>---o---<

You'd be amazed about the jobs I've had.

At one place:

ALLIN1, for instance, had numerous secret menu items. I did, however,
manage to decode the database files of a third-party database program
and write some DCL (that's all I had!) to export the data. And there
was no manual for any of that. The first was a surprise as I expected
the company who would implement the data into the new program (running
on a Sun box!) would do the export. They couldn't do the export. But
once we found the schema I was able to do it. I also transferred all
of their documents from the VAX to their PC's. I did this on my own,
seeing the need and told them I would do it. I wish we could go back
in time and you could show me how to do things I don't think that even
you would have figured out on your own.

Then there was the amazing WordPerfect bug that I think you'd be
hardpressed to have avoided had someone not told you about it. And,
because of this bug, when you reconfigured the general counsel's
printer and everyone's printouts suddenly all went to that printer,
I'd bet you would be rather unhappy!

People will need your help on day 1. You could tell them to wait until
you figured it out (trust me, it would take a while and you'd be hard
pressed to learn secret cures for some of the apps) or find out from
someone who already knew. You wouldn't last long if that kept
happening. You can't learn everything on day 1.

At my current job:

When you're sent to fix a broker's workstation and you never had a
chance to learn anything about the program, I don't think he's going
to be patient enough for you to figure it out, including where to get
the software to resinstall it (among literally dozens of various
versions of the program, some for Equities, some for Repos, no way to
tell the difference unless you already knew the version number scheme,
and labeled with dates in Apr 4 manner so that they would not be
sorted by time, and you have to know which are the production versions
and which are in development, and you have to know what server and/or
share these sources reside, (and deal with stupid Windows problems on
top of that!) etc., etc.). Good luck.

I suggest you go work for Obama and fix the current Financial Debacle.
I'd be rooting for you 100% (no joke). Good luck.

BTW, could you (and others) please "hit the ground running" on your
post-trimming skills? I'm really tired of having to cut so much
unneeded stuff from each post I write. This post would probably be 4
to 10 times longer otherwise! Thanks.

>
> 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