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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: VMS documentation?
Message-ID: <627@opus.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Jul-84 23:38:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.627
Posted: Fri Jul 20 23:38:04 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Jul-84 01:33:55 EDT
References: <978@ihuxi.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 21

> The reason that you see no books about VMS is that the people at
> DEC have heard of something that will come as a mild shock to UN*X
> people. It is called
>
>		DOCUMENTATION!!

But the books you find in the bookstores have nothing in common with the
documentation provided by either the people who distrubute UNIX (in its
various guises) or VMS.  Both systems come with REFERENCE material.  The
UNIX community knows all too well what the VMS world either totally fails
to understand or doesn't care about - you need TUTORIAL information as
well.  I dunno, maybe the basic knowledge of how to use VMS has to be
inherited.  (Things like the unbelievably baroque and inconsistent quoting
conventions of DCL [disclaimer: when I last used it a couple of years ago]
are neither documented nor amenable to analysis in a rational framework:-)
In any case, the books in the bookstores present real tutorial material -
that is, how to LEARN  to use UNIX.  Haven't seen any of that on VMS, from
within DEC or outside.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
	...A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.