Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!sommar
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Help us defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <2886@enea.se>
Date: 20 Mar 88 17:46:32 GMT
References: <2814@enea.se> <4055@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: sommar@enea.UUCP(Erland Sommarskog)
Followup-To: comp.os.vms
Organization: ENEA DATA AB, Sweden
Lines: 57

Nevin J. Liber (nevin1@ihlpf.UUCP) writes:
>Come on, give it some time.  Until recently, Unix was not even considered
>for doing anything but development.  And not all VMS compilers are all that
>great, either.  The Modula-2 compiler I used did SEVEN passes!!  Nor have I
>ever seen a VMS Pascal comppiler that works nearly as well as Turbo Pascal
>for PCs!  

My point was was that it's not simply one-to-one between layered VMS 
compilers and bundled Unix compilers. You do get something for that
extra money. As a side note: We bought an Ada compiler to our Unix
machine for a good deal of money. The code it produces is not over-
whelming, but it leaves the bundled "f77" and "pc" far behind.
  What's wrong with seven passes, by the way? VAX-Pascal uses eight or so.
I would also say that compiler works very well. I have no experience
of Turbo, though.

>Unix sysadmins, however, can understand their security problems because
>they can learn about how the OS works.  

I guess as there are knowledgeable and ignorant system managers for VMS,
it's the same for Unix machines. 

>To say that VMS is more secure than Unix or
>vice-versa is ridiculous.  They just have different security issues, that's
>all.

I wouldn't say that it's ridiculous. VMS 4.3, was approved for the C2 
level of security. Unix is not even near of this. VMS certainly has much 
more sophisticated and diversified tools for controlling access than 
Unix: Privilieges, access control lists, rights indentifiers etc. You call 
that ridiculous? 
(I don't know if any higher versions of VMS have been approved, anyone 
who knows?)

>One letter options are not really part of the OS user interface, per-se.
>Each command handles it's own arguments (although there are standard system
>calls such as getopt() so that some sort of consistency can be maintained).
>The user interface of Unix is really the shell (Bourne, Korn, csh, vsh,
>etc.).  And if you want to write your own interface, go do it!  It's not
>that hard.  Try doing it for VMS!!

The same drivel as always. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but the
vast bulk of Unix program use one-letter options, and it is also the 
preferred standard. And if they have longer names, they are seldom 
abbriavatable. When you are used to CDU on VMS, getopt really seems 
like the poor man's replacement.
  And, yes, I know I can write my own shell, but is that realistic?
Let's keep the discussion what is actually being provided, not what
I could theoretically write myself.
  (And I doubt that a CLI for VMS would be that harder to write than
a Unix shell. In VMS I have to load the command tables. In Unix I have
to expand wild cards in file names.)
-- 
Erland Sommarskog       
ENEA Data, Stockholm        
sommar@enea.UUCP           "Si tu crois l'amour tabou...
                            Regarde bien, les yeux d'un fou!!!" -- Ange