From: "Green, Paul" <paul.gr...@stratus.com>
> Disclaimer: I am not a VMS person. But I have done a lot of work with
> configuration scripts over the years. In my opinion, your code would be
> much more future-proof if you made positive tests than negative tests.
> E.g., "if alpha or ia64" rather than "if not vax".
>
> Perhaps you know that the VMS world will never have a 4th platform, in
> which case maybe you can live with "not vax". But at least in the Unix
> world, it is hopeless to test for "not" anything; there are over 30
> variants of Unix out there, and only positive tests have a chance of
> working over many years.
The VMS world is smaller than the UNIX(-like) world.
Saying that I "know" would be going too far, but in the VMS world,
there are very nearly only two variants. The VAX code base is old,
nearly stable (apparently stuck for all time at V7.3), and incompatible
in some ways with the newer code used on (and shared between) Alpha and
IA64. I expect any future VMS platform to be added to the existing
(more portable) Alpha and IA64 code base, leaving the VAX as the only
odd-ball, then as now.
Any new platform will have its own name, so some things may need to
be added for it, but in this situation, ".NOT. VAX" _is_ much more
likely to continue to work than is than any other arrangement.
One more (dreary) example leaps to mind:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/opensource/gnupg.html
Note that one can "Download GnuPG V1.4-7 for OpenVMS for Integrity
servers and OpenVMS Alpha", but you're stuck with "Download GnuPG V1.2-3
for OpenVMS VAX". Investigation will reveal that the (truly sloppy)
porting effort there was derailed exactly because of those positive
tests for Alpha instead of .NOT. VAX. The (truly sloppy) fixes used in
the builder to accomodate IA64 left the VAX build broken (and the Alpha
build suboptimal, apparently unnoticed). It's a trend. I'll take my
chances.
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Steven M. Schweda s...@antinode-info
382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818
Saint Paul MN 55105-2547
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