[Info-vax] Suggested DCL enhancement

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2020-11-11 13:39:14 +0000, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply said:

> In article <roeifs$sdi$1 at dont-email.me>, Stephen Hoffman
> <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
> 
>> What's the general trend? More command line? Or toward more automation 
>> and simpler interfaces?
> 
> What about command line AND more automation and simpler interfaces?  :-|

The majority of OpenVMS configuration and setup—prolly 75%—is rank and 
utter and complete manure, needless complexity, developers on too-short 
schedules with insufficient UI remediation and refactoring, with the 
usual dollops of compatibility hindered by archaic hardware and 
software limitations, and a legacy of trade-offs. By this I mean the 
majority of the OpenVMS install and configuration prompts should have 
been automated long ago. Defaults and default behaviors established. 
I'd be embarrassed to ship the current OpenVMS clustering setup 
mechanisms now, and the TCP/IP Services networking configuration spends 
a bazillion prompts on meaningless or automatable choices that have 
been inexplicably preserved and which then lead to varying network and 
UIC and username configurations which then leads to more documentation 
and more scripting, the majority if not the whole of the script-driven 
startup processing needs to be gone, and the list goes on from there. 
(But then some of that morass also ties back to the 
non-integrated-networking operating system design approach, and of 
which OpenVMS is among the last adherents.)

OpenVMS has to get better about installation and remote management, as 
the current schemes just don't work well for hosted and remote hardware.

For app-related scripting, sure, whatever the app designers expect of 
their users. Whether that's command-line, or app-related scripting.  
And yes, OpenVMS system and OpenVMS-provided app scripting is stuck 
decades back, too.

But then again, I really don't think we're headed for more command line 
interfaces and tools as the UI, save where the existing tools force 
that. It's just not the long-term trend that we're on in this business.


-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC