[Info-vax] OpenVMS versus Windows/GE Telemetry Control Systems.

[JohnF]

David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> JohnF wrote:
>> Trying to convince a manager who wants to migrate
>> that it's not necessary can't be solely based on the unadorned
>> fact statements above.
> 
> Well, if a manager wants to migrate, then many times that's what is 
> going to happen, and please don't confuse him/her with such trivia as 
> "facts".

The very rare still-VMS-shops that I come across (for new VMS logo
I nominate Dodo bird) are managed and staffed by old-timers who don't
"want to migrate", as you put it, but feel pressured to migrate for
all the reasons enumerated by many others in this ng on many previous
occasions. Most would >>welcome<< good facts and a good argument
not to, as far as I can tell. But you snipped the question at the
bottom of my preceding post. Care to suggest some answers I might
be able to pass on?

> My arguments aren't against migrating. People should do what they want 
> to do. My arguments are only about the "why" of such a decision.  If 
> you got something that ain't broke, then why fix it?

Embedded systems, process control, etc, may have functional
specifications that remain unchanged for very long times.
But business systems change all the time. They're constantly
"broke", so to speak. The last VMS system I developed from
scratch was before stock prices were reported in decimal.
That had to get "fixed", and they called me because nobody
on staff could handle it any more. When y2k rolled around
I picked up maybe half a dozen pretty simple remediation
projects. But every last one of them had accumulated
unresolved "change orders" due to user error reports and
requests for new functionality that weren't handled
in-house (though on several occasions I thought they
could have been -- not sure why they weren't).

> Now, can it be broke now, or clearly broke in the future, why,
> then addressing the problem is a correct action.

Right, and business systems are, in effect, always
"clearly broke in the future". To argue keeping VMS you
have to answer all the obvious questions: hardware, operating
system, staff, software tools, third party packages (e.g.,
Swift funds transfer), and whatever else I've forgotten.
And, again, you snipped my question about that kind of thing
at the bottom of my preceding post. And nobody else
followed up at all. Sounds like a tacit statement that
migration is the only path forward.
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j at f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )