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From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: RMS considered harmfull...
Message-ID: <504@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Feb-85 21:46:57 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.504
Posted: Tue Feb 19 21:46:57 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Feb-85 05:41:59 EST
References: <623@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
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> When I open a file for sequential access in a program, I don't want to have
> to think about whether the program could also be accessed some other way.
> With RMS, I don't need to.  With less-integrated systems, I do.
> When I TYPE a file, I don't want to have to think about what other modes
> of access might or might not work for that file; I shouldn't have to
> remember that the file is indexed, remember the name of the un-indexer, and
> construct a command line to pipe the file through the un-indexer.

But how many indexed files are TYPEable (or "cat"able, or whateverable)?
Most of them probably contain lots of binary data in their records, which
means you'll get gibberish if you type them - if you're lucky.

> >What, you say you don't have pipes in VMS?  Maybe you'd better put them
> >into RMS. :-)
> Actually, pipes should probably be done as a device driver for a
> virtual device.  I imagine it's been done many times.  

What's wrong with just using mailboxes?  A mailbox has somebody who stuffs
records into them and somebody who pulls records out of them; I believe
you can even open one as an RMS file and pump text (or any other sequential
record format) into one or pull it out of one.  That would be sufficient
to qualify them as pipes in my mind.  I don't think DCL has any syntax
to set up pipelines, however.  The VMS/VNX/whatever Bourne shell might.

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy