[Info-vax] CRTL and RMS vs SSIO

[Dave Froble]

On 10/9/2021 2:18 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 10/9/2021 1:54 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 10/9/2021 6:19 AM, Greg Tinkler wrote:
>>> every thing is clumps of data being buffered is some way, the API
>>> that accesses that data from the higher levels may be stream based.
>>> In this case it is CRTL's role to translate the clumps of data
>>> into/from stream API.
>>
>> So, how does Pascal, Fortran, Cobol, Basic, and such do it?
>
> They do not treat files as streams of bytes - they treat files
> as sequences of records.
>
> The underlying problem is that the two paradigms are pretty
> incompatible. It is not easy for CRTL to translate a sequence
> of records to a stream of bytes in a consistent and meaningful
> manner.
>
> Arne

Which is why Steve's suggestion for ODS2/ODS5 becoming just another file 
system.

Which is why Steve's suggestion for RMS to become just another database 
product.  Well, if ODS? wants to use it for directories, Ok.

But even if another "application" handles other files, there is still 
the issue of today's disks being block based (Ok, punched card if you 
must) devices.

Stream devices is alien enough to today's VMS that it would be much 
better served by dedicated tools designed for that format.  (And it sure 
isn't RMS!)

Then there is the interesting question of what the next format to come 
along might be.

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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