[Info-vax] What would you miss if DECnet got the chop? Was: "bad select 38" (OpenSSL on VMS)

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Den 2016-09-19 kl. 09:16, skrev Dirk Munk:
> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Dirk Munk  <munk at home.nl> wrote:
>>> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>>> Dirk Munk  <munk at home.nl> wrote:
>>>>> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>>>>> Jan-Erik Soderholm  <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think we have to accept that the rest of the world selected
>>>>>>> TCPIP for networking.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And, that being the case, we need to have the same features that
>>>>>> people
>>>>>> have liked with DECNET (such as the remote save sets) available with
>>>>>> > IP.
>>>>>
>>>>> YOU ALREADY HAVE THOSE FEATURES !!!!! IT IS CALLED DECNET OVER IP !!!!!
>>>>>
>>>>> Why on earth would any one try to invent something that is already
>>>>> there, that is plain silly. No other OS could use those features.
>>>>
>>>> There's the problem right there.  "No other OS could use those features."
>>>>
>>>> Maybe I want to put my remote saveset on a Solaris machine.  Maybe I
>>>> want to put it on a disk appliance.  We live in a world where we need
>>>> to coexist.
>>>
>>> You create a container file on any OS, and offer that container file
>>> over iSCSI to VMS. VMS will see a volume, you can format that volume
>>> with VMS, and use it to store data.
>>> The host operating system will only see a very big file, it can not look
>>> inside the container disk for individual VMS files..
>>
>> That doesn't sound very much like compatibility to me.
>>
>> Sheesh, just give me a standardized shared filesystem over IP, that I can
>> address from the command line.   With good performance.  I don't even care
>> what kind it is as long as it's standard and widely-compatible.
>
> How do you want to achieve that? VMS has file versions, Unix and Windows
> don't. Do you want to abandon VMS file versions, or should Unix, Linux and
> Windows learn hows to use file versions?

In 99 cases out of 100 in real production environments, that "other"
system that your VMS systems are talkning to, are *not* VMS systems.

So the concept of file versions as we know it from VMS is irrelevant
when talkning to other systems anyway.


>
> For Unix and Windows a file starts at point A and ends at point B, and in
> between are bytes. If these files have record separators, then it will be a
> <cr> for the one, and a <lf> for the other. VMS knows these files as stream
> files, or files with an undefined contents. Normal VMS files are
> structured, a concept completely unknown to Unix and Windows. Cobol for
> instance needs structured files, so a Cobol compiler on Unix or Windows has
> to define its own structured files, but Unix and Windows will be completely
> unaware of that.
>
> How do you want to combine these things in one file system?
>
>>
>> There was a time when DECNET was a great thing.  Back in those days, my
>> employers ran a network with over a thousand DECNET notes in several
>> areas.  We were on NREN so that we could readily copy a file over to a
>> university in Spain or vice-versa.  It was great.  If anything went wrong,
>> I could call the networking office and they would fix it because everybody
>> there knew DECNET.
>>
>> The last two DECNET nodes shut down a couple years ago, after a decade or
>> so of being tunnelled through IP and a decade of my having to listen to
>> the networking guys about "those weird-ass servers."
>>
>> It was here, and it was good, and it was widely compatible.  But it's not
>> here any more, it's not good any more, and it sure isn't compatible with
>> anything much any more.  There was a time when it would have been possible
>> to extend it and keep it living, but that window closed long ago.  It's
>> time to leave it dead and stop wasting time, energy, and money that could
>> be spent taking care of the living.
>>
>> It's time to let it go along with SNA and Appletalk...
>> --scott
>>
>