Favorite operating systems query

[Barry Shein]

re: MKR mentions the problem of VMS manuals.

At a DECUS a couple of years ago I was sitting and chatting with some
of the DEC/VMS crew, some of them were involved in ULTRIX also. The
issue of VMS in an academic environment came up. I was trying to not
go into any flamage but it occurred to me that while the UNIX (4.2)
manual set was available at our copy center for around $100 (and that
includes broken out portions of the administrator's stuff etc, a realistic
complete set for a student costs more like $50) an equivalent set of
docs for VMS would fill a couple of bookshelves and cost hundreds of
dollars. I basically said that it was a real problem, at our VMS site
almost none of our -faculty- have sufficient VMS manuals in their office
while at our UNIX sites I never see this problem, they'll just go to the
copy center and buy what they need.

I felt that this was a serious problem, that providing the real documentation
(not to mention all the other publications useful for learning UNIX) was
critical for a student environment to give them a sense of what the system
was really about and to learn how to use documentation independantly.

Their reaction was basically: "You know what, you're absolutely right,
that *is* a serious problem now that you mention it." I only say this
before the defenders of the one true faith go off babbling about manuals,
sometimes something important is just overlooked and I think this is a case.

Not sure what could be done, especially within the huge bureacracy that
surrounds VMS, I know they have made some serious improvements in this
since (those small binders) but I don't think it quite solves it (I'd love
to think it had something to do with that conversation, not likely.)
Not that I'd recommend VMS for educational use anyhow (for other reasons)
tho I wouldn't condemn it either, just wouldn't be my choice (I mean,
after all, if they used VMS how would they ever learn UNIX?! :-)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University