Post by d***@gmail.comAnd why it is the name for band My Chemical Romance too? I'm not yet
another emo kid which stumbled upon here, just I'm curious when I found
out accidentally about this band when searching how to use this command.
MCR The Command was a command well before any of the members of MCR The
Band were born. Maybe go ask them for the origin of the name, if it's
not already been documented?
More for posterity and history around the then-current status of the
MCR command within OpenVMS.
This may well have been the thread that kicked off a discussion or
three within OpenVMS development, around the MCR command and
particularly around its semi-documented status within the OpenVMS
documentation set. There were a few references to the MCR command
scattered around in the manuals and particularly in the examples
published in the documentation set, though the bulk of the MCR-related
command documentation and related baggage had been previously expunged
with the removal of the then-VMS pieces of RSX-11M compatibility mode
at then-VAX/VMS V4.0; when then-VAX/VMS went fully native on VAX.
Whether the then-we OpenVMS development should re-document and
implicitly also then support at least parts of the MCR command—and as
this thread touches upon, the command is somewhat unusual—or whether
then-we should work to further remove the remaining documentation
references to MCR.
As part of this de-documentation effort, a reference to the command and
the RSX-11M compatibility environment would have reasonably been added
into the OpenVMS obsolete features manual, though that manual had
itself been marked obsolete. Go figure.
For reasons of compatibility, the MCR command wouldn't be removed from
the command tables nor from the system, but remaining references to MCR
in the documentation would be removed.
A number of MCR references were then removed from then-opened manuals,
or were queued for removal as the associated and then-closed manuals
were eventually opened and updated and regenerated.
This is one of the areas where OpenVMS documentation falls down badly.
The whole approach was toward printed manuals and stocks and printing
costs, and not toward continuous updates and native-online
documentation. Hence part of my comments around re-thinking the
entirety of the related processes, as well as the tools and the
currently-limited app and tool access available. This is why various
manuals can and variously did end up stale. More often than might be
realized. It wasn't feasible to reprint them, so the updates languished
in source files and/or in bug-tracking databases, and weren't available
to customers. But I digress.
References to MCR in published source code examples would have been the
next targets for further de-documenting the command. There was also
some discussion around the longer-term incremental removal of MCR
references in existing DCL procedures within OpenVMS itself, though
that would have been more aspirational than reality, and only as the
particular DCL was modified for other purposes and other reasons.
There's far too much stale code around in OpenVMS itself and in its
published examples, and it all gets used as examples for newer OpenVMS
and newer customer development, unfortunately. OpenVMS was never very
good at documenting and guiding end-users and ISVs around
security-related programming information, for instance. And OpenVMS
development hasn't been particularly adept at de-documenting and
removing old and outdated bits, at moving folks away from old and
outdated designs, and old approaches. This is probably also related to
why a number of long-term OpenVMS folks haven't recognized the latent
security issues in OpenVMS and in user and third-part apps, too. But I
digress, again.
MCR isn't AFAIK considered documented and—given the retirement of the
RSX-11M compatibility mode kit some years ago—probably also is not
particularly considered supported for customer use, and is probably
best avoided in new DCL procedures and new work. But it almost
certainly won't be removed, and the mainline RUN SYS$SYSTEM behavior
will almost certainly continue to work. This for reasons of
compatibility. Donno. Ask VSI.
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