VORBRUEG@DBNPIB5.BITNET (06/18/87)
Sorry for the somewhat scathing subject line, but that's the point: The RTLs for *ALL* languages are distributed via VMS so that *ANYBODY* can run a programme written in any language. Or would you want to buy the PLI compiler just to be able to run MONITOR? Or PASCAL to be able to run TeX? Or.....? I'm sure that DEC makes every effort to ease the problems resulting from this policy, but obviously they can't all be avoided. And apparently the C RTL has always been a difficult thing. Remember the times when it wasn't even clear whether you wanted the object library or the shareable image or both, and the differences between VMS and microVMS? At least these problems seem to have been solved. On the point of release notes, I prefer to have them machine readable. (I'd even rather have LaTeX input than RUNOFF output, but that's another point, and don't flame me on it.) I agree that any caveats like "Don't install until you have version x.y of product z" should go in printed form into the distribution. But the release notes as a file allow you to print any number of copies and so on. Whether the release notes go into the help file or not, is a point of taste. I would argue that a consistent naming scheme like the one employed now by a number of layered products (but excluding for instance FORTRAN and PCA) which puts them into SYS$HELP has the advantage of keeping the already very large VMS help file somewhat smaller. And the system manager has the option of deciding whether he wants to keep them online (e.g., on a disk space limited microVAX) or not without having to extract the help file entry, edit the release notes out and re-inserting them. And again, you have the advantage of a seperate file you can print, etc. (Btw, this also allows a knowledgable user to see which version of what layered product is installed on the system; for a novice, a short entry of the form "Release notes may be found..." in the help file is enough.) But that's long enough already. --- Jan Vorbrueggen