Xref: utzoo comp.os.vms:9052 comp.unix.wizards:11403
Path: utzoo!yunexus!oz
From: oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Record-access libraries (Was: Re: VMS vs. UNIX file soapbox)
Keywords: RMS
Message-ID: <864@yunexus.UUCP>
Date: 30 Sep 88 05:42:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: yunexus.864
References: <68855@sun.uucp> <207@cvbnet2.uucp>  <3717@encore.uucp> 
Reply-To: oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit)
Organization: York U. Computing Services - Magic Group
Lines: 40

[disclaimer: I am an ex-VMS-hack, used RMS extensively in the past, like
its power, puke at the sight of its interface, and here, I am speaking of
facilities, rather than a messy filesystem format to support multiple
file formats]

In article  Eric S. Raymond writes:
> ...other associative retrieval schemes are not within the scope
>of the original question. Let's not muddy the waters by confusing 'record
>access' in the RMS "fixed and blocked record" sense with more general 
> database access techniques.

They happen to be an integral part of RMS, and extremely well done in
functionality, leaving the "goriness" of the interface aside.
[Reportedly, even the designer of RMS admitted to its ugliness :-)] 
If I had a "library" half as powerful as some of RMS's facilities, I would
be damn happy... It is a shame that best un*x can come with is ndbm (and
that is, if you are lucky :-) Why do you think andrew@alice (Bell Labs)
was asking about something that can handle gigantic databases ??
Aren't you curious why more and more programs across variants of un*xes 
rely on dbm/ndbm type databases ?? It must be RMSicide !!

RMS Record access you say ?? this concept is especially revolting for our
purist(!) byte-stream-with-a-nl (usually 512 bytes or shorter for idiotic
programs :-) perspective.  Alas, we merrily keep faking that our byte
stream is in fact a collection of average size lines (records for less
religious :-) and rush to our soapboxes at the suggestion that something
as ugly as RMS can actually be useful. (*because* of its support of "more
general database access tecniques".)

You know, there is no such thing as "a little bit of purity". On the other
hand, crap is crap.

[Sounds of shuffling a plane ticket to alaska, to escape flames...]

oz
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