[Info-vax] callable BACKUP example

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-07-14 22:57:20 +0000, Dave Froble said:

> On 7/14/2021 12:31 PM, jimc... at gmail.com wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 8, 2021 at 5:47:45 PM UTC-7, Dave Froble wrote:
>> 
>>> "Cut-n-Paste" usually means the user didn't bother to understand the 
>>> example/source. That isn't a good idea at any time. The doc examples 
>>> are to help one understand, not to be blindly copied.
>> 
>> Cutting-and-pasting code into an editor so you can build and experiment 
>> is an important expedient even if you're going to rewrite and integrate 
>> independently.
> 
> Only if you understand what you're using.

I'd like secure code. I'd like perfect code. I'd like folks that 
understand all aspects of the code. Or every aspect of the enterprise 
environment. All those are wonderful and desirable and all the rest. 
But that isn't the world that most of us live in and operate in.

Cut-and-paste app development is how the world works now, and I'd wager 
~everybody here has used existing copyright-appropriate source code 
examples as a starting point.

Nobody is an expert in all of the OpenVMS APIs, and some of the OpenVMS 
APIs can diverge widely (SMG, ACME, OpenSSL, etc) from the more typical 
API designs.

The OpenVMS API designs are also wildly different from APIs on other platforms.

There are cases where the error handling is a central part of the call, 
and existing OpenVMS examples tend to fail here. This includes BACKUP, 
SSL/TLS, and a number of other contexts.

Copying cookbook code is how the world works now, how ~all of us 
already or will be operating, and particularly with the sorts of 
complex and glue-code-focused API designs prevalent on OpenVMS.

Template source code examples embedded directly in documentation are, 
well, archaic. And in various cases, won't build, or will omit 
important API details in the interest of brevity of documentation.

I'd prefer better abstractions in general, and I'd prefer the source 
code examples be prepared as cookbooks with robust error handling, to 
be buildable and usable, and with a permissive copyright. Let the docs 
link to the cookbook.

I'll again dare y'all: I *DARE* you to write a client-server app using 
a SSL/TLS connection with proper certificate verification on both ends 
of the connection, including the ability to detect interception, using 
the current TLSv1.3 and secure encryption and key exchange. I *DARE* 
you. And this is just the tip of the difficulty. ACME is no great joy 
to use for a password verification—what should be an easy case—as 
another example. I won't dare y'all to write that, as you'll fail.



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