[Info-vax] Suggestion: Enhance DCL to support proper escape quoting.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/20/2022 12:37 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 1/20/22 11:26 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 1/20/2022 10:25 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 1/20/22 9:19 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 1/19/2022 9:37 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>>>>> On 20/01/2022 02:14, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>>> Very few VMS users work at the DCL prompt today.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But I think a lot of VMS "users" are benefitting from
>>>>>> scripts running on VMS.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So good script capabilities does matter.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But I don't think huge updates to DCL is the way forward
>>>>>> for scripting.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Existing DCL needs to continue to work as it has for 10-20-30-40 
>>>>>> years.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> New stuff can be written in something else.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is not as if it is difficult to install various 'nix utilities. 
>>>>> I have quite a few, although I probably only use a a few of them - 
>>>>> grep being one of them
>>>>
>>>> *nix or general - bash and tools are obvious *nix 
>>>
>>> bash is Linux, not Unix.
>>
>> Bash was developed on Unix (first version of bash came out
>> 2 years before the first version of Linux). It became
>> popular on Linux and was later adopted by various Unixes.
>>
>> I think *nix is a good term to describe it.
> 
> Sadly, I don't think any Linux users (or even most Linux
> developers) have ever read any of the books like "Software
> Tools" or "The Unix Programming Environment".  It may look
> somewhat like Unix, but it is lacking in the underlying
> paradigm.

The world has evolved. Different problems and different solutions.

>>>>                                                     but Perl
>>>> and Python are not *nix specific.
>>>
>>> Both were originally developed in the Unix environment.  Use in any
>>> other environment is an afterthought.
>>
>> They were developed on Unix but I don't think calling usage on
>> other platforms an afterthought is proper description.
>>
>> When Guido Rossum released the first public version of Python he wrote:
>>
>> <quote>
>> It runs on most modern versions of UNIX, on the Mac, and
>> I wouldn't be surprised if it ran on MS-DOS unchanged.  I developed it
>> mostly on an SGI IRIS workstation (using IRIX 3.1 and 3.2) and on the
>> Mac, but have tested it also on SunOS (4.1) and BSD 4.3 (tahoe).
>> </quote>
>>
>> so he did test on Mac from day 1 (and Mac at that time was not *nix).
>>
>> When Larry Wall released the first public version of Perl the build
>> configuration included:
>>
>> <quote>
>> /* EUNICE:
>>   *    This symbol, if defined, indicates that the program is being 
>> compiled
>>   *    under the EUNICE package under VMS.  The program will need to 
>> handle
>>   *    things like files that don't go away the first time you unlink 
>> them,
>>   *    due to version numbering.  It will also need to compensate for 
>> lack
>>   *    of a respectable link() command.
>>   */
>> /* VMS:
>>   *    This symbol, if defined, indicates that the program is running 
>> under
>>   *    VMS.  It is currently only set in conjunction with the EUNICE 
>> symbol.
>>   */
>> </quote>
>>
>> so definitely Unix centric but VMS aware.
> 
> EUNICE?  That's Unix running on top of VMS. :-)
> Can it be compiled and run if you set the VMS flag?

I believe Eunice was a shell and library similar to
later Posix for VMS or Cygwin on Windows.

And my guess will be that it required Eunice to build
but could run from DCL.

>>>> DCL is a good interactive command language and not as good
>>>> a scripting language.
>>>>
>>>> If DEC 35 years ago had decided to enhance DCL to make
>>>> it a great scripting language then it would have made sense:
>>>> - DEC had money
>>>> - bash/Perl/Python did not exist yet
>>>
>>> Maybe not bash, but other shells which were ideal for both
>>> interactive use and scripting were.
>>
>> sh, csh, ksh etc. was around.
>>
>> But no more ideal than very few use them today.
> 
> Funny, that.  NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD don't ship with bash
> installed and not offered as one of the default shells in the
> /etc/shells file.  I don't even use bash on Linux.  I haven't
> used Solaris in quite some time but the last time I did it
> was the same. I have used Unix since Version7 and have never
> used a version of Unix that shipped with bash.  Only Linux
> does that.

I believe that bash is default shell on Linux and Solaris,
default install on macOS, an extra install on AIX and
*BSD and an extra install on VMS (GNV) & Windows (Cygwin)
today.

Arne