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

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <kedtde$9tr$1 at dont-email.me>, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
>On 2013-01-31 12:28:53 +0000, Simon Clubley said:
>
>> On 2013-01-31, Simon Clubley 
>> <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>> On 2013-01-30, Richard B. Gilbert <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> On 1/30/2013 2:56 PM, Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote:
>>>>>>>>> [1] Does anybody have a suggestion for a collective noun
>>>>>>>>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_for_birds> for
>>>>>>>>> DCL procedures?  A collection of DCL procedures?  A nest?  Wad?
>>>>>>>>> Accretion?  Scrum?  Heap?
>>>>> 
>>>>> A FISTful of procedures?
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Assuming that this is serious, what about a "Library"
>>> 
>>> No. A library is where you put things that are designed to be readable.
>>> 
>> 
>> I suppose I'd better explain that comment. :-)
>
>I understood the joke.
>
>> I try to write my DCL procedures to be as readable and as maintainable as
>> possible, but when I use other scripting languages on Linux and then come
>> back to DCL, it feels rather like trying to write using assembly language
>> when writing DCL code.
>> 
>> The end result is the DCL procedure is cluttered with various workarounds
>> and low level coding structures needed to handle the limits of DCL.
>
>The OpenVMS command line, system services, the language and run-time 
>libraries and the rest are similarly limited.  Solid, but limited.
>
>While it's possible to do a whole lot with VMS — "Turing Complete" and 
>all — it's increasingly involving far more work and far more time and 
>far more effort.  Adding all this code means there's more to go wrong, 
>too; when you need a few hundred or a few thousand lines of glue code 
>and a {collective noun} of DCL procedures, you're adding bugs and costs.
>
>In terms of raw command line features and capabilities, bash completely 
>blows the sneakers off of DCL.  It's possible to do a whole lot more in 
>bash, and often in a whole lot less space.  Not that there aren't 
>gnarly parts of bash, not to imply bash is the paragon of clear syntax, 
>and not to imply bash makes a good newsreader.  (Though it would not 
>surprise me to learn somebody's written a newsreader in bash, either.)
>
>Put another way, when working in DCL, I find myself missing various 
>capabilities of bash.  Yes, you can get there.  But as Simon writes, 
>the DCL code is more cluttered and more convoluted.  Which is just a 
>little weird, given how convoluted and cluttered bash can and often 
>does look.  I find myself climbing into gnv for various tasks, too.

Show me... without PIPES and myriad other *IX utilities.  Compare only
/bin/bash scripting semantics with DCL's. 

-- 
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

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