[Info-vax] CRTL and RMS vs SSIO

[Dave Froble]

On 10/7/2021 2:28 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2021-10-07, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>
>> Don't know how far work had progressed on alternate file systems.  Might
>> or might not help to make RMS "just another capability".  But, doing
>> what you suggest would go a long way toward making VMS more useful in
>> the future.
>>
>> I've got the suspicion that VMS clusters, while good, create some of the
>> problems in attempting to add new capabilities to VMS.  Need I mention
>> "MOUNT"?  Better segregation might help to add new and different
>> capabilities.  Not sure how easy that might be.
>>
>
> VMS clusters at conceptual level are not the problem. They offer
> some very nice functionality that only recently is beginning to
> appear elsewhere. They were literally a generation ahead of what
> was available elsewhere when they were released.
>
> The problem is how VMS was designed in those early days before
> modular and layered computing really took off.
>
> The VMS filesystem code, including MOUNT as you say, is a _horrible_
> monolithic mass of closely interlinked code without any clear
> boundaries between them that allow people (including end users) to
> easily plug in new functionality and new filesystems.
>
> The same is true for VMS CLIs BTW. DCL is tightly bound into VMS
> in a horrible way it should not be. On Linux, both the command
> shell and filesystem architectures are vastly cleaner and more
> modular than they are on VMS.
>
> However, if VMS had been designed in a later era, there would be
> absolutely nothing stopping VMS having a cleaner internal architecture
> _and_ also having world-leading cluster capabilities that are only
> now just being equalled elsewhere.
>
> IOW, it's not clustering that's the problem - it's the fact that
> VMS wasn't implemented 5 to 10 years later than it was.
>
> Simon.
>

You may have noticed that I didn't blame VMS clusters for the problem. 
Rather how some things are so rigid, and more so because of support for 
some things that involve clusters.  Makes new stuff sometimes much 
harder, as you mentioned.

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
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