File specification regularity (Was: Re: VMS vs. UNIX file system)

[Mike Khaw]

In article <206 at arnold.UUCP>, dave at arnold.UUCP (Dave Arnold) writes:
> To all you future filesystem designers, please avoid the following:
>   SYS$SYSROOT[UTILS.ANUNEWS.SRC.NEWS_SRC]NEWSADD.OBJ;1
> NOTE: SYS$SYSROOT is also a logical name which has 2 translations.
> Oh yeah, then there is the DECNET node specs:
>   VAXB"LOGIN PASSWORD":: plus the above.
> I prefer:
>   /sysroot/utils/anunews/src/news_src/news_add.obj

It's even more fun when you decnet copy between Ultrix and VMS because
VMS thinks "/" means a command line option switch (so you have to quote
Unix pathnames), and csh thinks all sorts of horrible things about "$",
":", "[", "]", and ";" (so you have to '-quote the whole mess).  On top
of that DEC had to invent totally different ways of specifying username
and password for Ultrix, and Ultrix's dcp (decnet cp) is strictly 1 file
per invocation (blecch).

At least Ultrix decnet lets you omit your password on the command line,
and let you supply it UNECHOED in response to a prompt.  I don't know
if it's fixed in VMS 5.0, but VMS 4.x decnet was pretty brain-damaged to
require that you type your password in a nodespec for the whole world to see.

One good feature of Ultrix decnet is tcp/decnet gatewaying.  It lets
a Unix host telnet and ftp to a VMS host that doesn't run tcp/ip services.
It even works for non-VAX Unix machines (e.g., Suns).

Mike Khaw
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