[Info-vax] Should VSI create a modern day VMS applications book ?

[Neil Rieck]

On Friday, August 17, 2018 at 11:51:42 AM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 9:05:46 AM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> > In the distant past, DEC used to create application books which
> > listed the various third party applications available for the
> > DEC operating systems.
> > 
> > Is it worthwhile for VSI to create a modern day version of
> > these books either as a PDF book or as an interactive website ?
> > 
> > If worthwhile, I don't see this as being a massive resource hog
> > for VSI after the infrastructure is in place as they would mainly
> > collect submissions filed by those same third party vendors.
> > 
> > Simon.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> > Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
> 
> Back in the day, I learned a helluva lot of stuff about VMS by reading a book published by DEC Educational Services which, I think, was called "VMS Services from BASIC" (apologies: someone stole my copy).
> 
> Then in 1993, I stumbled onto a better book titled "Writing VAX/VMS Applications Using Pascal" by Theo de Klerk (Digital Press). I didn't have a Pascal compiler but was at one time a fairly proficient Pascal programmer so was able to translate many of the examples into BASIC and C/C++.
> 
> Since then, the only good book I've come across is "The Minimum You Need to Know to Be an OpenVMS Application Developer" by Roland Hughes. IIRC, I purchased three copies of this book for distribution to our remote developers.
> 
> Anyway, to answer your original question, VSI would be wise to commission some new books and/or republish some existing stuff. For example, it was quite easy to do internet programming from BASIC or C when we were using the "Application Libraries" associated with TCPware. But back in 2014 we were forced to move to MultiNet where (like TCPIP Services for OpenVMS) Application Libraries do not exist so you need to roll your own code. Now I was able to do this during our conversion project from Alpha to Itanium but all the time I wondered how VMS newbies would do it. 
> 
> p.s. anyone looking for ideas by inspecting the "C" source code associated with applications like "nslookup" is in for a rough ride along with some sleepless nights.
> 
> Neil Rieck
> Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
> http://neilrieck.net/

Update to my previous post. The two books published by "Digital Educational Services" were titled:

Utilizing VMS features from VAX (Lecture Guide)
EY-2321E-LG-0001 (Wire Bound)
November 1984

Utilizing VMS features from VAX BASIC (Language-Specific Workbook)
EY-2321E-WB-0001 (Wire Bound)
November 1984

I began working with VMS in 1987 when I was transferred into a department where one guy (Harry S) had been given all the courses and the rest of us (~ 5 developers) were expected to learn from Harry (by osmosis?). During one of these events, Harry was too busy to answer my questions so he handed me these manuals.

So to answer the question asked in the original post, yes: if VSI wants to keep OpenVMS alive then they need to commission or re-market some material showing how to write OpenVMS applications. If they do not want to spend money writing paper-based manuals, then how about a website. That is what I tried to do here over the past 20 years.

http://neilrieck.net/demo_vms_html/openvms_demo_index.html

p.s. over the years I have bumped into people who used VAX BASIC or DEC BASIC but never knew how to manipulate (CRUD) records on ISAM/RMS files so some of my examples are really simplistic. 

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net