From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 12/8/2025 9:12 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:   
   > On 2025-12-05, Arne Vajhøj  wrote:   
   >> My opinion is that DCL:   
   >> * is fine for interactive use   
   >   
   > [Oh dear, Arne, oh dear... :-)]   
   >   
   > No, it most certainly is not fine for interactive use.   
      
   Well - I don't really miss anything when I am working at   
   the DCL prompt.   
      
   > 1) You can't edit a line longer than the terminal width. Either fix the   
   > terminal driver or add the functionality to DCL itself.]   
      
   I never use that long commands.   
      
   What are you doing when you need such long names? Filenames with   
   full path and deep directory structures??   
      
   > 2) No easy incremental search of command history (Bash Ctrl-R style).   
      
   I suspect most can do without that.   
      
   > 3) No saving of command history into a history file with just the commands   
   > entered into multiple simultaneous DCL sessions added to the end of the   
   > history file.   
    >   
   > 4) No automatic restoration of command history during startup of a new   
   > DCL session.   
      
   I have never felt a need, but it seems a natural feature.   
      
   Either change DCL LOGIN and LOGOUT to always do it or   
   add @LOGOUT at logout and supply a capability of RECALL   
   to load and store so people can do it they want it.   
      
   > 5) Piping is seriously clunky.   
      
   Given a requirement to be 100% compatible with older   
   VMS, then i think PIPE is about as good as it can be.   
      
   > 6) Nothing matching "man -k" in the DCL HELP facility.   
      
   A little SQLite database and a utility could do   
   that.   
      
   But not really DCL.   
      
   Note that there are ways to achieve this today. From my 9.2-3 system:   
      
   $ hhint gettim   
   help System_Services $GETTIM   
   help CRTL decc$fix_time Example   
   help DECdts utc_mkvmslocaltime Example   
   help DECdts utc_mkvmsanytime Example   
   help DECdts utc_vmsgmtime Example   
      
   But it is using Solr which is a bit on the heavy side for   
   this purpose.   
      
   > 7) VMS diff is lousy compared to GNU diff and its unified diff mode.   
   > GNU diff is available from third parties for VMS. It should be a part of VMS.   
   >   
   > 8) VMS SEARCH functionality is weak compared to grep.   
      
   It would make sense to put GREP, UDIFF, UPATCH etc. on all   
   VMS systems.   
      
   But that does not require any DCL changes. Just put the   
   all the EXE in a dir and put symbols in SYLOGIN template.   
      
    > 9) No tab completion of filenames.   
      
   I can live without. But it is a common shell feature.   
      
   It would obvious require a DCL change - this is something   
   a pre-processor cannot handle.   
      
   Arne   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)