[Info-vax] MONO (.NET) for VMS

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Thursday, 29 January 2015 15:58:51 UTC, Stephen Hoffman  wrote:
> On 2015-01-29 13:34:03 +0000, John E. Malmberg said:
> 
> > On 1/27/2015 4:38 PM, Richard Maher wrote:
> >> Has anyone tried or heard of anyone trying to port MONO to VMS?
> > 
> > The last time I looked, it needed a whole load of support libraries 
> > ported just to get started.
> > 
> > Now that GNV has been improved, it may be more practical to start 
> > porting those.
> > 
> > I have not looked in a while, but you probably need a current ncurses, 
> > and all the components for a current GTK+, which has been the biggest 
> > blocker to porting major open source programs to VMS with the needed 
> > functionality to be used.  Not lack of fork(), not OS features, just 
> > get current versions of those libraries, and a ton of useful 
> > applications will almost just compile and go.
> 
> I'd probably add cmake to that list, but yes.
> 
> > 
> >> Two changes in Windows IIS application deployment I see happening at 
> >> the moment is: -
> >> 
> >> 1) Shared servers are back in vogue with web-farms and web-gardens. But 
> >> a shared/single system-disk would really help here!!!
> 
> Out of curiosity, how would having a single, shared system disk help sell VMS?
> 
> That's not intended snark.   I do have some slight understanding of 
> clustering, and of how deployments are done on some other platforms.
> 
> With the ability to do client thin imaging or alternatives such as 
> loading and booting a VM image, and with deployment tools including 
> Munki, ARD, Puppet or Chef, and with the ability to share settings via 
> easily-installed profiles and particularly using distributed services 
> such as LDAP, with servers such as CalDAV, and particularly with 
> integration with Exchange Server or alternatives such as Kerio, and 
> integration with SharePoint or alternatives such as Igloo Software, 
> rapid, end-user-customized deployment is very easy.
> 
> With InfoServer, folks have been using imaging with VMS for most of 
> twenty years.  Really great for testing purposes, among other uses.  
> Easy to reset to a clean install, and easy to load whatever common base 
> version or configuration is necessary.
> 
> In short, getting the OS bits loaded is pretty easy, and the sort of 
> sharing that clustering has available is -- as far as I can tell -- 
> available using different means.
> 
> Now as for issues, VMS is not particularly adept at what profiles can 
> be used for; the ability to acquire and load -- for instance -- the host 
> name and the host address into the disk image, and the ability to 
> capture the MAC address or serial number, configuration, errors, and 
> other tracking data.  VMS also lacks tools to easily load applications 
> and layered products and compilers -- as wasteful as application bundles 
> can be, we're not in the same disk storage world as we were decades 
> ago.  This means that shared system disks are useful for VMS, but -- if 
> you can easily and quickly load that stuff, via drag-and-drop or by 
> deployment script or otherwise -- the advantages of installing stuff 
> once and sharing it just isn't as great as it once was.
> 
> Put another way, sharing a disk is certainly nice and can be useful -- 
> and common in a VMS context -- but doesn't look like a huge advantage 
> given some of the available alternative approaches.  Single system 
> image also means that one corrupted disk volume or some sort of 
> infestation will take out multiple boxes, and it means that folks will 
> either need specialized links and hardware, or will be slinging 
> operating system tools and data over Ethernet.
> 
> Then there's the whole idea of trying to compete anywhere near head-on 
> with Microsoft and Windows, even with how much smaller the Microsoft 
> marketshare of client devices is.  Are there going to be enough new C# 
> and .Net/Mono deployments on VMS to matter, and to be worth the 
> investment?  But then, I've posted a few hair-brained gonzo suggestions 
> here, certainly.  So...  Sell me on how having C# and Mono and shared 
> system disks would help me?  Or, how would this help VSI move more VMS 
> licenses?
> 
> 
> >> 2) People seem to be deprecating (nay completely ignoring) the GAC. Now 
> >> every application has to ship a copy of everything it needs bar the 
> >> core OS.
> 
> These are what are sometimes called bundles on other platforms.  Why 
> try to resolve the prerequisites, when you can create a package that 
> contains and isolates all the dependencies for an application?    Yes, 
> and the OS is just a dependency for the application, too.
> 
> Sharing dependencies was very important when disk space was tiny and 
> expensive, or when memory was short, or when the dependencies are huge, 
> but disk space and memories and cores are rather less of a constraint 
> nowadays.  There's been the VMS DLL hell involving OpenSSL in recent 
> years, and other open source projects will encounter the same, as their 
> APIs evolve.
> 
> Years ago, many folks -- including myself -- were grumbling about how 
> applications written in higher-level tools and frameworks were using 
> more and more memory, and more and more processor, and more disk.   
> Remember the discussions around how much larger Alpha images were, than 
> VAX, and how much larger Itanium images were than Alpha?  Or for the 
> old folks here, the grumbling over the use of high-level languages, 
> rather than using a proper assembler, or the wastefulness of 4GLs 
> rather than 3GLs?     Well, we now have a whole lot more memory, and a 
> whole lot more cores, and a whole lot more disk space -- and we still 
> don't like paying for it, of course.
> 
> In comparison with the Good Old Days, my phone now has more storage and 
> more memory and more cores and faster graphics than many of the early 
> Alpha systems, and more than most of the VAX systems.
> 
> Are there still cases where disk or memory or cores are short, or when 
> scaling means managing a whole lot of systems and guests, many of which 
> are running less than fully configured?  Sure.  Solve those cases and 
> those problems, and you'll a product that might interest some folks.  
> But then, I don't think you're going to get there with single system 
> image, nor with app stacking as it's currently done -- there are too 
> many unresolved dependencies and collisions lurking.
> 
> Getting back to my question, solving current problems is interesting.  
> How does single system image and sharing a disk help, given how easy it 
> is to blast in a new disk image?  The firmware in the computers I'm 
> using can perform the equivalent of a MOP bootstrap and a software 
> install over an Internet link, after all.
> 
> >> VMS certainly looks well placed to solve (1)?
> > 
> > Shared hosting for a partitioned linux host (simulated VM) is about $1 
> > U.S./month.  This looks like a real server to most applications, but is 
> > actually isolated using security features....
> 
> Mr Maher is likely referring to the resource and data sharing of 
> clustering, here.  Not to shared hosting.
> 
> > For VMS to get its foot in the door for that market, the provider may 
> > need to be able to meet those entry price points.
> 
> While intended to refer to shared hosting and not clustering, his 
> comment definitely applies to anybody that's trying to chase Windows.  
> Even if VMS comes free with the x86-64 box, folks are going to want 
> some prerequisite applications, and will want their own applications.  
> Having Mono isn't nearly enough to get even a toe-hold.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

Devil's advocate time.

"How does single system image and sharing a disk help, given how easy it
is to blast in a new disk image? "

Maybe, just maybe, it gives you one system image to patch every Patch Tuesday,
rather than one system image to patch per application? 

"Single system  image also means that one corrupted disk volume or some
sort of infestation will take out multiple boxes"

No worse than a LAN-wide malware infestation in a Windows setup, then?


"Why try to resolve the prerequisites, when you can create a package
that  contains and isolates all the dependencies for an application?"

It's Patch Tuesday. Can anybody out there point me at an explanation
of how Windows Update updates Side by Side assemblies in such a way
as to fix every instance of the DLL being patched. Same question for
the replacement of SxS?

Side by side assemblies were introduced with W98Se and W2K in an attempt
to mitigate some of the nightmare known as DLL hell. One consequence of
SxS is that every application gets installed together with its
own personal copy of its dependencies (much as Hoff posits). Side by
side assemblies have in turn been replaced by something else, which iirc
basically makes every version of a DLL a logically independent library...

"the whole idea of trying to compete anywhere near head-on
with Microsoft and Windows"

Why bother. The modern Microsoft is quite capable of shooting itself (and
its Microsoft partners) in the foot. This isn't the Microsoft of the
1980s-2000s any more. This Microsoft thinks the cloud is the ONLY answer, 
the Microsoft cloud, regardless of what its customers think. This MS
thinks that applications on desktops won't count for all that much longer.

"VMS also lacks tools to easily load applications and layered products
and compilers"

Whatever did happen to VAX RSM (RSM = Remote System Manager, which did
remote/pre-configured OS and layered product software installs and more
way back in the 1990s, on VMS and Ultrix), after it was Palmerised (?)
into Polycenter Software Distribution ?
DTJ: http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/dtj/vol6num4/vol6num4art6.txt
SPD: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/info/SP2959/SP2959PF.PDF

DIGITAL had it then. 
Micrsoft. Bringing you 20th century technology in 2015 (apologies to
wherever I borrowed that from).