Re: VAX/VMS (was: Re: Debian/GFDL)

[Juanma Barranquero]

On 11/23/06, Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> wrote:

> VAX/VMS had a strongly typed file system

This is a feature. As it was its automatic versioning of files.

> It also had a really
> obscure syntax for file names, using []:. among other special
> characters.

Obscure only from another system's mindset. There was nothing obscure
in its filename syntax from my POV.

> And a zillion different kind of hardwired interacting
> privileges that meant that ordinary users rarely were able to do what
> they want, but hackers could do anything as there were always some
> obscure path from "may use the printer privilege" to "can overwrite
> system files privilege".

As if that didn't ever happen on Unix, did it? :-)

> The editors were EDT and later TPU.  They were much better than vi, I
> have to give them that.  You can suffer them in Emacs with M-x
> edt-emulation-on <ref> or M-x tpu-edt <ret>. (TPU was really a system
> for writing editors in).

The usual TPU editor was called EVE (Extensible Vax Editor).

> Some people liked VAX/VMS, typically the same who preferred Wirth
> Pascal over K&R C.  For the rest of us, Ultrix was a much more
> productive environment, once you had installed Emacs in it.

Thought I'm no Pascal freak, about the only language I wouldn't prefer
over K&R C is BASIC...

                   /L/e/k/t/u