[Info-vax] Ghostscript and HTML Browser on X86

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2022-12-14 kl. 20:24, skrev Dave Froble:
> On 12/14/2022 12:15 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> Den 2022-12-14 kl. 15:37, skrev chris:
>>> On 12/12/22 15:36, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 12/12/2022 10:07 AM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>>> In article <tn7fft$1i5h$1 at gioia.aioe.org>, =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=
>>>>> <arne at vajhoej.dk> writes:
>>>>>> Web browser is an entirely different story. I think the short
>>>>>> version is that it will not happen.
>>>>>
>>>>> I remember when people were saying that VMS on x86 would never happen.
>>>>
>>>> x86-64 became more capable and Alpha and Itanium was dropped, so
>>>> suddenly there were a business case for porting VMS to x86-64.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe it is my lack of imagination, but I cannot see any change
>>>> in circumstances that would create a business case for web browser
>>>> on VMS.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Ridiculous situation, for any modern os not to have html browser
>>> support. Admin and other everyday tasks have required the use of a
>>> html browser for decades now and the lack of puts vms at a serious
>>> disadvantage from a systems management point of view. People still
>>> think a text only interface is good enough in 2022 ?, complately
>>> naive.
>>>
>>> Not easy to build Firefox, tried it here, endless dependencies on
>>> other packages, but it will be needed, vms kicking and screaming or
>>> not...
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>
>> I must have completely missed the whole "web-thing"...
> 
> No, you didn't.  Those others did.
> 
> :-)
> 
>> I thought that any web-browser must have a web-server to actually
>> do any "work" at all. You cannot do much with a browser alone.
> 
> Ayep!
> 
>> Only having a browser on VMS doesn't help much...
>>
>> And if you have a web server on VMS, the browser can run anyware.
>>
>> And it is much more practical to use the same browser that you use
>> for everything else, the one on your laptop/desktop system. Or is
>> you plan to use the VMS browser for all your other everyday tasks?
> 
> There are more than a few issues.
> 
> If a web server doesn't implement all the functionality that a basic CLI 
> provides, then the browser cannot serve those options.


But that is a completely different question.

> 
> Quite often, a web server interface to various tools, apps, and such is 
> added on over top of whatever command set the tool, app, and such provides, 
> and, perhaps by different people.  Having 100% compatibility can be 
> questionable.

Not sure what you are talkning about. That has nothing to do with having
a web browser native on VMS.

And many embedded devices have both web and CLI interfaces.

> 
> On the other hand, if the web server implements all possible commands,  
> then it can be much easier to use.  If I haven't done a particular task for 
> some length of time, I perhaps have forgotten things, and a good job of 
> implementing the task(s) on a web server can be helpful.
> 
> As Jan-Erik has mentioned, where the user's browser is running is rather 
> flexible.  But you must have the web server.
> 

Right. 100% correct.