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

[AEF]

On Jan 31, 5:03 pm, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> In article <keenff$te... at iltempo.update.uu.se>,
>         Johnny Billquist <b... at softjar.se> writes:
>
> > On 2013-01-31 20:22, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> >> In article <keeb7i$e1... at dont-email.me>,
> >>        Stephen Hoffman <seaoh... at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
> >>> On 2013-01-31 17:38:45 +0000,   VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG said:
>
> >>>> $ filename =
> >>>> filenameprefix+"_"+F$fao("!19AS",F$cvtime(,"COMPARISON"))-"-"-"-"-"
> >>>> "-":"-":"+".dmp"
>
> >>> Yeah.  Or add the prefix and the underscore into the f$fao, as that
> >>> avoids clobbering caracters in the prefix.
>
> >> And tell me how the above is not cryptic?  Just what is the difference
> >> between the first dash and the second?  Or the third?  And would anyone
> >> normal determine that?  :-)
>
> > Maybe it would be more obvious with some appropriately placed spaces...
>
> > $ filename = filenameprefix + "_" +
> > F$fao("!19AS",F$cvtime(,"COMPARISON")) - "-" - "-" - "-" - ":" - ":" +
> > ".dmp"
>
> Nope.  Still looks as clear as mud.  Now, I am certain that experienced

C'mon, it _is_ an improvement. Not enough, or not enough for you,
perhaps, but an improvement nonetheless. Is it really that hard to
guess that the isolated dashes are minus signs? Admittedly it's hard
for me to judge, being I already know the answer.

> VMS DCL Programmers understand that completely buit tell me which one,
> the Unix example Hoff posted or this one is more likely to be deciphered
> by someone who doesn't know either OS.  The Unix example has symbols
> that can at least be intuitively determined (a Y probovly means Year and
> an H Hour and their location removes the ambiguiyty ot the M and m.)

Well, to keep the riff raff out! If you haven't learned the OS well
enough to read this type of code, maybe you shouldn't be messing with
it in the first place! (^_^)

> > Ie, remove three dashes and two colons, and then add something at the
> > end. (Ignoring what's going on at the beginning.)
>
> Yeah, all those dashes and double quotes lined up like that, that's
> real intuitve.
>
> > As the for F$FAO and F$CVTIME functions, you obviously need to read the
> > documentation to know exactly what they produce.
>
> And if people actually took the time to read Unix documentation they
> would find out it's not at all cryptic.  There is a logic to all of
> it (well, except maybe awk, the name, not the function.)

Well, if it's not cryptic, why do you have to read the manual? If you
read the manual about DCL symbol manipulations, VAXMAN's command is
not cryptic, either -- well, if you add clarifying spaces, anyway.

Reading Unix documentation is no fun. The man pages are formatted with
proportional spacing of fixed-width characters so as to make the right
margin straight. That makes it ugly and hard to read. The business
world ruled it out long ago. Ragged edge is the way to go with fixed-
width font.

Some man pages are loaded with incomprehensible stuff. And it's
sometimes hard just to find the one thing you need. It's fine as a
reference if you already know the command and just need a quick
reminder. And things vary from brand to brand.

Many commands don't even have man pages!

Here's what 'man cd' produces on the Mac:

BUILTIN(1)                BSD General Commands Manual
BUILTIN(1)

NAME
     builtin, !, %, ., :, @, {, }, alias, alloc, bg, bind, bindkey,
break,
     breaksw, builtins, case, cd, chdir, command, complete, continue,
default,
     dirs, do, done, echo, echotc, elif, else, end, endif, endsw,
esac, eval,
     exec, exit, export, false, fc, fg, filetest, fi, for, foreach,
getopts,
     glob, goto, hash, hashstat, history, hup, if, jobid, jobs, kill,
limit,
     local, log, login, logout, ls-F, nice, nohup, notify, onintr,
popd,
     printenv, pushd, pwd, read, readonly, rehash, repeat, return,
sched, set,
     setenv, settc, setty, setvar, shift, source, stop, suspend,
switch,
     telltc, test, then, time, times, trap, true, type, ulimit, umask,
     unalias, uncomplete, unhash, unlimit, unset, unsetenv, until,
wait,
     where, which, while -- shell built-in commands

SYNOPSIS
     builtin [-options] [args ...]

DESCRIPTION
     Shell builtin commands are commands that can be executed within
the run-
     ning shell's process.  Note that, in the case of csh(1) builtin
commands,
     the command is executed in a subshell if it occurs as any
component of a
     pipeline except the last.

followed by more useless stuff, at least for the cd command.

It's amazing I ever stumbled upon the 'cd -' command, which useful for
going to your previous working directory. I certainly wouldn't have
found it here!

>
> 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