[Info-vax] Long uptime cut short by Hurricane Sandy

[Paul Sture]

In article <00ACE34F.C7917D85 at SendSpamHere.ORG>,
 VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:


> In DCL, one can delete a character from a string with - (subtract) and one
> can add strings with a "+" (just like in Hoff's bash example!).  I can, for
> example, remove the "$" in this string: "This is a $ sign." with -"$".  In
> DCL, the subtract character will delete the very first occurrance of said 
> character that's specified when encountered in the string.  If no character
> is found, nothing is done.  HB pointed out that using the ()s would define
> the scope better but I assumed no "funny" characters would be in the file
> prefix.  The multiple -"-" -"-" remove the dashes in the time and the -":"
> -":" remove the colons in the time.  Surely, you could see that if you'd
> have tried to understand it instead of choosing to denigrate DCL.

The ability to add and subtract strings in DCL is very useful.  FWIW you 
can also perform additions and subtractions inside the arguments to f$ 
lexicals.
 
> A lack of understanding of the semantics doesn't make it cryptic.  And FWIW,
> I can hack a bash script too!  I'm responding to this thread from one of my
> Linux laptops!  I've spent the better part of my week trying to restore all
> of my environment, customizations and scripts after updating another Linux
> laptop.  I don't understand why the Linux folks insist on doing that but it
> has been their modus operandi.

Ugh, yes.  I have recently come across complaints that such upgrades as 
exist (Fedora, Ubuntu?) tend to break.

-- 
Paul Sture