[Info-vax] PHP on VMS x86-64 9.2-2

[Dave Froble]

On 3/25/2024 4:22 PM, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <uts93j$16m5n$1 at dont-email.me>, seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid
> (Stephen Hoffman) wrote:
>
>> Examples of alternatives and tooling mentioned in my earlier reply,
>> too. And Linux is a mess here, too. This is not an easy problem.
>>
>> OpenVMS is limited here both by its compatibility goals, and as
>> this and related areas are seemingly "below the fold" when
>> investing time and effort on the platform.
>
> This is very educational: I'm learning about the origins of my employer's
> very painstaking maintenance methods for shared library interfaces. Those
> started on VAX VMS and have been applicable to every other platform we've
> supported. They do require regarding the API compatibility as a
> fundamental feature, never to be busted without a very good reason.
>
> John
>

After having some experience with RTLs in VMS, WEENDOZE seemed to me to be a bit 
lacking.

Ok, a confession.  I have a database product which has a couple RTLs and a 
couple files for linking.  I attribute my placing them in SYS$SHARE to laziness. 
  Guilty as charged.  However, with logical names on VMS it is rather trivial to 
associate RTLs and such with particular applications.  After all, the developers 
should have to do some work.

The final concept I came up with in WEENDOZE was to place such files in the same 
location as the application executables.

As a general concept, the RTLs, DLLs, and such that are developer and/or used 
with a particular application are indeed part of that application.  Storage 
should no longer be an issue.  My first DEC system was a PDP11-40 RSTS system 
with 8 RKK05 disk drives.  Each was 2000 blocks.  Thought it was great, at the 
time.  Today we have multi-terabyte drives.  While old habits die slowly, my 
opinion is use whatever storage (and memory) is required to have a well ordered 
application installation.  Bundle the complete application as a single entity.

While some may feel that VMS (and others) should have tools to address such, 
I've found that logical names can do the job.  And some work by the developer.

-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
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