[Info-vax] 64 bit DCL ?

[David Froble]

JF Mezei wrote:
> On 15-01-18 08:44, dodecahedron99 at gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> My vote would be to spend the time and effort into Python. 
> 
> When VMS came out, one of its biggest advantages over other operating
> systems, in particular the IBM ones was that DCL was standard for
> interactive, scripting and batch, whereas IBM had different ones for
> interactive, batch and TSO scripts (and then there were the VM/CMS ones
> as well).
> 
> I see Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby and so many others as the "soupe du jour"
> that are not long term in popularity.  Great for applications, not sure
> if they shoudl be core of a long term operating system, especially if
> they are not usable in all modes, command line, scripting, batch. (and I
> guess as subprocesses of a web server).
> 
> I personally have nothing against DCL.  My questions have more to do
> with how DCl is tied to VMS and vice versa.

Depending upon perspective, I'd argue that DCL is not really tied or 
part of VMS.  It's more like something layered on top of the OS. 
Without it, it's sort of difficult to tell the OS to do something, and 
that is the opposite side of the argument.  Where would we be without 
the "RUN" command?

DCL is a "user interface".  VMS users need it.  Other than where used, 
I'm not sure the OS needs it.  Of course, the OS is rather useless 
without it, sort of like VAXeln is not a general purpose OS.