VMS vs. UNIX file system

[Dave Arnold]

In article <3597 at encore.UUCP>, bzs at encore.UUCP (Barry Shein) writes:
> 
> What I mean is, used unnecessarily where bag-of-bytes files would do
> just fine and cause much less confusion.

Exactly.

> For example, on an earlier release (probably 1.6) of VMS I wanted to
> edit a file produced by RUNOFF (to do a few global changes so
> underlining or some such would print properly on my printer.) Not as
> easy as it sounded, EDT refused to load this print file for editing,

EDT still gives a warning about files created with VAXC.  Dumb!

> The problem with the Unix "unstructured" approach is that either you
> use some of the (very few) library routines (dbm is a major one, so
> are the object deck readers in SYSV) or you roll your own, each
> application will have its own way of storing data (compare termcap
> with passwd with inittab with crontab with ...) often not terribly
> well documented or efficient (agreed, often efficiency is a poor
> excuse for obscurity.)

This is not a problem.  It's not often that your application requires
you to "Roll your own".  And you get a very simple filesystem.
When you try to design a filesystem that will attempt to please
everyone under all circumstances, you over build---A real mess.

Anyone try tuning a RMS ISAM file?  Some pretty spiffy analysis
tools :-,

> It's all a balancing act.

Tightrope.

> 	-Barry Shein, ||Encore||

I appreciate your points, Barry, but don't agree.
-- 
Dave Arnold
dave at arnold.UUCP	{cci632|uunet}!ccicpg!arnold!dave