[Info-vax] DCL's flaws (both scripting and UI)

[Doug Phillips]

On 1/23/2015 9:44 AM, JF Mezei wrote:
> On 15-01-23 02:30, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>
>> $ pipe dir disk$user:<helbig> | sea sys$pipe login
>
>
> Isn't support for <directory> something that dates back fro PDP11 days
> and supported on VMS just to helop that transition ?
>
> I'd say that support for <directory>  could be deprecated and removed in
> a version or two of VMS.
>

I don't use <dir> myself, and my few remaining VMS sites are all on 
Alpha v7.3-2 so I don't know if this has changed with v8.n, but $SEARCH 
SYS$MANAGER:*.COM ":<" shows that DEC/CPQ/HPQ did use <dir> quite a lot. 
So, if it's a problem with PIPE, then I say fix PIPE and don't break DCL.

One "fix" that I'd like to see is removing the *need* to define a root 
like $DEFINE MYROOT DEV:[MYDIR.] for MYROOT:[SUBDIR]. But, if any ".][" 
or "][." or "][" in a directory spec were parsed as a single dot we 
could just use SYS$LOGIN:[SUBDIR]. What problems would that cause?

I don't think any thoughtful additions to DCL should break any code that 
currently exists and as with any other new release of any language or 
OS, you can't use new features on old versions that don't support those 
new features.

Back in VMS v5.0 we got IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF and we all knew that if we 
used it the .COM wouldn't work on anything older than V5.0 -- but old 
DCL would still work on v5.0 -- so what's the problem with *enhancing* DCL?

I personally have nothing against GOTO but a FOR or DO-WHILE and 
DO-UNTIL would be nice and there are many times I wish for a CASE or 
SWITCH or MATCH construct that I could use instead of a series of IF's 
and GOTO's.

I strongly agree with David Froble and others that the simple answer is 
to use the right tool for the job, but DCL can be enhanced without 
breaking it.