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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/25/2024 7:20 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> 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.

> 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.

> 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.

VMS got the version check in the image activator.

VMS allows side by side installation using logicals.

Could VMS do more? Yes. But I don't think there is a good
case to do more. The message from VMS users seems to be
that they want less not more in this area. The "please
maintain backwards compatibility and disable the version
check and I will just upgrade to latest and greatest and
it should work" seems to be what the customers want.

Arne