[Info-vax] OT: Rob Short: Operating System Evolution

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <paul.nospam-91F9B0.21284204012010 at pbook.sture.ch>,
> 	Paul Sture <paul.nospam at sture.ch> writes:
>> In article <4b40c08e$0$280$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>,
>>  Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>
>>> The *nix and Win way is that extension implies content while VMS and
>>> to some extent DOS is that application implies content and extension
>>> usually can be omitted because the application will apply the default.
>>>
>>> I very much prefer the VMS way for command line, but it is
>>> not easily applied to GUI.
>> One problem I find with OS X (and I assume other *nix variants) is 
>> determining which files are executables or scripts. 
> 
> Try the "file" command.
> 
>>                                                     The .EXE and .COM 
>> convention used by VMS does makes that easy to see at a glance.
> 
> I thought we were just told that under VMS there is no significance to
> file name extensions?  I know I had no problem running a file with the
> extension .ZIP this morning.
> 

I'd question the "no significance".  PRINT and TYPE expect ".LIS" so you 
need not specify it.  OTOH if you insist you can try to print binary 
data and may actually get some output.  It's seldom or never of any use 
but you CAN get it.  RUN assumes .EXE. @ assumes .COM and so forth.

You CAN say RUN MUMBLE.O and if the file specified is actually an 
executable image, I would expect it to execute correctly.  In the normal 
course of events there is seldom or never any good reason to do such a 
thing but it's possible.