From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!ucbvax!G:wing
Newsgroups: net.works
Title: Re: Bandwidth, encodings, abbreviations and command language.
Article-I.D.: populi.261
Posted: Wed Jul 28 14:07:42 1982
Received: Thu Jul 29 05:20:50 1982

VAX/VMS (no flames, please!) is a very human command language.  ALL of the
commands are words.  The abbreviated forms of these commands are just that,
you simply drop letters at the end of the command word until VAX/VMS says
that you are ambiguous.  RUB OUT is the erase character here and a very logical
one.  The only problem I see is that one, the error messages aren't worth much
(If you have a copy of DecWars, they have one in the text), and two, the
changing of erase character between UNIX and VAX/VMS has killed this news
item a number of times and occasionally screws up one of my commands in VMS!