[Info-vax] openvms and xterm

[motk]

On 21/04/2024 10:46 am, Arne Vajhøj wrote:

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

I can assure you it's much more simple than dealing with shell scripts 
in init.d, rc.d, /opt/foo/product/bin/etc/local/init.d/rc.d etc etc. Let 
alone stuff glommed into inittab that called stuff that did god knows 
what. This script calls a binary, that writes out a shell script with a 
BASE64 encoded portion that extracts itself and execs it and writes out 
a pid somewhere and what the hell.

Someone said "bugger this" and wrote something much neater and with 
clearly defined configuration. It was a godsend.

> 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.

Sure, you can still do that, but you now have the problem of knowing 
what the state of the system is, being able to interrogate that in a 
machine readable way, and being able to be managed as a fleet.


-- 
motk