VMS: logicals UNIX: links, but...

[Rahul Dhesi]

In article <810040 at hpsemc.HP.COM> gph at hpsemc.HP.COM (Paul Houtz) writes:
>The code I just ported was from an IBM System/34.  It would have been 
>easy to run the benchmark on a VMS system, because it has LOGICALS that
>are LOCAL to the user.   It was a real PAIN because Unix doesn't.  And
>in my opinion there is NO "badly" written code.   There is only code
>that is less portable or less maintainable.

Seldom do we so so many rebuttable arguments in the same paragraph.

>The code I just ported was from an IBM System/34.  It would have been 
>easy to run the benchmark on a VMS system, because it has LOGICALS...

I assume "ported" in this context means "modified so it would run on a
new system".  But the code did not run under UNIX.  This means that
your port wasn't complete.  You left the hard-coded filenames in.  As
has been suggested before, removing them would have been fairly easy.
Don't blame the target system for not accepting code that isn't
correctly ported.

>It would have been 
>easy to run the benchmark on a VMS system, because it has LOGICALS that
>are LOCAL to the user.   It was a real PAIN because Unix doesn't.

It turns out that VMS has a clearly-defined syntax for its logical
names.  (Well, precisely-defined, at least, if not very clearly.)  A
logical name like ":yzzy:abc$^&*" will definitely not work.  Your
program did not use filenames with such a syntax.  Was it simply
coincidence that you (or the original programmer) used names that VMS
would accept?  Now if you (or the original programmer) had indeed used
":yzzy:abc$^&*" as a filename, VMS would have choked on it but UNIX
would have handled it just fine.  In that case could we then conclude
that VMS was broken and UNIX was perfect?

>...in my opinion there is NO "badly" written code.   There is only code
>that is less portable or less maintainable.

It doesn't matter whether you classify the code that you were running
as badly-written, less portable, or less maintainable.  Whichever it
was, it wasn't what UNIX was designed to run.  Neither will UNIX
correctly run code like

	  #include stdio
	  main() {int i; i = SYS$QIO ( ... etc. ...); }

Not badly-written necessarily (VMS C being a different kettle of fish)
just not portable.  And UNIX won't run this, thank heavens.

P.S.  Just to make you think, try this with VMS C.

	 $ CC /standard /define=DEBUG /define=VMS  /define=BIG myprog.c

(a) The switch /standard is interpreted to mean "don't check for
conformance to standard."  (b) Only the last define has any effect.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi at bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
UUCP:    ...!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi