[Info-vax] Logging systartup_vms.com progress to operator.log VMS 7.3-2

[Craig A. Berry]

On 10/26/20 5:25 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 10/26/2020 3:39 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:

>>> Why do I as an end-user even need that documentation?
>> 
>> An end user doesn't.  Someone who sets up systems sure does.  Someone 
>> who is going to make serious changes to a system set-up sure does.

 From the point of view of installing software, the person traditionally
known in VMS-land as the "system manager" *is* the end user. In
VMS-land, that person typically has more "post-installation tasks" (as
PCSI euphemistically calls the dangerous hand-editing of low-level
configuration scripts) than the analogous person would have on other
systems.

>> Why does that documentation need to exist?
> 
> So someone who needs it can access it.  And there will always be someone 
> who needs it.

But the details of how the installer interacts with the system startup
should only need to be referenced by people building installers, and
hopefully they have a nice API and don't have to know *all* the details.
The person installing software should not need to know how to implement
what the installer should be doing automatically.

>> Because we've always done it that way?
>>
>> Or maybe because maybe the apps haven't had a way to register their
>> startups and their logins at install time?
> 
> Some things require specific knowledge.
> 
>> I find this whole discussion interesting, even given many of the readers
>> here routinely use systems that register their startups at install.
> 
> You mean systems where "one size fits all"?  I don't think such exist.

Most installers on other operating system offer lots of options, so no,
one size does not fit all.  But once you've answered all the
pre-installation questions, the installer just does them all rather than
listing them out for you to do manually as "post-installation tasks."