[Info-vax] CRTL and RMS vs SSIO

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 10/9/2021 6:41 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> 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.
> 
> 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.

It is certainly a possibility for VMS to add a new file system
where files are just streams of bytes aka no concept of records
in file system.

And it is certainly possible to change language IO to access
such a file system directly not through RMS.

But if ODS-2/5 and RMS are still to be supported (and they have
to for existing applications) then I am not sure that it will
make things less complicated.

Arne