GOET@HWALHW5.BITNET.UUCP (06/09/86)
> ARGGGGGG! Obviously you have much faith in the ability of a software > upgrade to work correctly and the way you expect, the first time !!! > > While I have done upgrades of .......... etc. If all VAX-users will keep adapting themselves to the current procedure of installing software, I suppose DEC wil never make any effort to make a good procedure, that is one that is useful in a time-sharing environment. The current installation-procedure is nice for a system, which stands in one corner of the office, with the 5 users sitting around it. But for large clusters, with hundreds of users online, it seems pretty pre-historic. Having worked with TOPS10 for years, I was really accustomed to an easy way of installing things: You could prepare everything up to the point that executables had to be moved to SYS (SYS$SYSTEM in VAX-terms). You could even test compilers etc. while having the executables in your own directory. Then there was a directory called NEW, which was searched by the O/S before SYS (if the user asked to do so). So the procedure was to move new software to NEW, test it for a couple of weeks, and move it to SYS if you were sure that it worked. Also for a new version of TOPS10 itself. This could also be prepared during time-sharing. If you wanted to test it, you could leave the executable in any directory. Just reboot the system, and tell the bootstrap where to load from. In this way you needed only a reboot, to run a new version. Of course there were exceptions, but in general it took far less down-time than is needed for VMS.