[Info-vax] openvms and xterm

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 4/20/2024 8:32 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 4/20/24 18:26, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> The problem is not systemd.  Systemd is a symptom of the problem.
> 
> I can agree to that.
> 
>> The problem is change for change's sake.  Let's rewrite this thing and 
>> make it different... not better, just different.
> 
> I feel like there is a HUGE dose of ignorance on some contemporary 
> developers and they are repeating old mistakes and making new mistakes.
> 
> I know that some oft maligned changes are actually rooted in good 
> reason.  I'm thinking about the deprecation of ifconfig, netstat, and 
> route.  The kernel grew, changed, and gained a LOT of new options that 
> the old tools had no idea how to work with.  I can get behind that.
> 
> What I can't stand is why there aren't new versions of ifconfig, 
> netstat, and route that use the new framework while providing command 
> compatibility with nearly 50 years of Unix and Unix like OS history. Not 
> providing a compatible wrapper is stupid in my opinion.
> 
>> There's some argument for a service manager.  But a service manager 
>> should not replace everything with one big monolithic chunk.  I am not 
>> a fan of service managers and I didn't like when Solaris implemented 
>> it, but I can see some arguments in favor.
> 
> At least Solaris stopped SMF at managing services and didn't try to take 
> over DNS, NTP, and many other things.

I don't know systemd well - only its reputation.

But my impression is that it missed on the main criteria: keeping
things simple.

To illustrate the point and somewhat move back to VMS let me confess
something: I really like SYS$MANAGER:SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM to manage
what get started on VMS.

VMS start the stuff that has to run and one put in what one
want to start in SYS$MANAGER:SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM usually in the
form of @SYS$STARTUP:something$STARTUP.COM.

A simple text file that after a little cleanup typical
will be only 20-50 lines. Easy to understand. Easy to edit.

My perspective is based on some assumptions:
- that there is no need to start many hundreds of products
- that there are not crazy many dependencies
- that the system manager know how to edit a text file in
   a terminal window

But I think they should hold true for practically all VMS
systems.

Arne