OpenVMS Differences Document

[Bill D Michael]

Comments from others and my reactions...

>All-in-one, CDD, help, rms journalling, kanji: gone/undecided - no loss
>    for us. We've used & given up on CDD & RMS journalling long ago.
>    I always meant to use help, but probably never would ;).

All of these but "help", aren't a big issue for us. On the other hand, it
is a major pain that the help facility is being removed.

>PHD - to be added - hooray !!!

Does this mean for all platforms? If so, the non-VMS folks are about to be
_very_ pleasantly surprised by this fix. And the VMS version will once
again be reasonable to use.

>- UPDATE procedure generation. Bottomup versus Topdown. You state that the
>default in 8.2 will be bottomup. This is different from 8.19 which is,
apart
>from Image manual masters, topdown and has been since day one. Am I
>misreading something? Such a change would seriously affect the item
>statement processing of a lot of screens :-((

I think "bottomup" and "topdown" are both too simplistic. The order of
updates should be dependent on the file types. Non-database files should be
topdown, as in the past. ONLY those database files (Image masters, Oracle
tables) where referential integrity is constrained by the database should
be bottomup. I would hope that one of the selected options would do this.

>My only other comment would be to express concern that my support dollars
>and probably most of the Cognos ADT resources are being spent primarily on
>Vaxisms to the exclusion of other platforms.

You have to realize that the 8.xx series is "common code base"; fixes and
additions for VMS will have an impact on non-VMS platforms as well! This
differences document finally seems to be saying that PowerHouse 8.30 will
have the "best from each platform" in all versions - instead of the 8.00,
8.10, 8.20 approach of "least common denominator".

New comments: Down on page 14, "Line Recall" is "undecided". I've only used
HP and VMS, so I don't know about other platforms, but HP terminals allow
"line block" mode to let the user reenter a previously typed line, from
anywhere in the terminal's memory. The VMS equivalent is the up-arrow Line
Recall functionality. Without this, your only option is to use the editor
to revise the entire session, whenever you need to change something. NOT
user-friendly. Our QUIZ users who have helped with testing our 8.20
migration are screaming about this, and the programmers (who at least CAN
use "revise") aren't real happy either.

"PDL ASC LOGONIDs", shown as a "Bug in 8.20" - was fixed in 8.20D1, as was
the Quiz "PRINT AT" problem (not listed on the differences document).
AFAIK, those are the two differences in D1.

The other items listed as "Bug in 8.20" are nice to know (we'd missed a
couple of them!) but this is hardly a comprehensive list. We're much more
concerned about the QUICK access-violation aborts, incorrect retrieval
order, blanking of date fields, and SUM INTO errors, and QUIZ "and to"
linkage problems, than many of the ones noted here. The one _advantage_
that I see to having a common code base will be the increased likelihood of
bugs being spotted early (more users) and fixed across all platforms
quickly.

All in all, I'm very glad to see this document, and very encouraged by the
fact that so many of our "wish list" items are "to be added", or at least
"Undecided". Very few were "will not be added".

Thanks!

Bill



= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Subscribe: "subscribe powerh-l" in message body to majordomo@lists.swau.edu
Unsubscribe: "unsubscribe powerh-l" in message to majordomo@lists.swau.edu
This list is closed, thus to post to the list, you must be a subscriber.