[Info-vax] Programming languages on VMS

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-02-02 21:20:11 +0000, DaveFroble said:

> Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> On 2018-02-01 17:29:24 +0000, DaveFroble said:
>> 
>>> Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>>>> TL;DR: RMS file versions are a pain to use, require the user or the 
>>>> system manager explicitly manage them, and don't particularly solve the 
>>>> problems that we even say that RMS version files solve.   Not well.  If 
>>>> at all.
>>> 
>>> Maybe I'm just too old school, but, I understand versions, and I 
>>> understand what they can do for me.  And so, I use them.
>> 
>> There's no reason not to use them.  They are, however, a complete pain 
>> in the rump, and don't really solve the problems we use them for.   
>> Combining versions and backups, and direct integration with source code 
>> control tools for developers really makes this clear, too.
> 
> It really depends on how such is used.  Most definitely not for backup 
> and such.
> 
> I've seen systems where an inadvertent PURGE would be a disaster.  
> Blamy that on people, not versions.
> 
> Anything I might want to save will NEVER be a prior version.

For developers editing code, file versions are backups.  Transient 
backups the way they're currently implemented, but fundamentally 
they're used as backups.  And they're not at all integrated with the 
"actual" backups.  If this isn't clear, then ponder what you'd do 
without file version support, but with a backup system that collected a 
backup on every file close, and automatically thinned out the more 
frequent backups into less-often and longer-term archives; into backups 
that are kept longer.  This isn't a hypothetical design, either. This 
implementation exists.



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