Nifty feature in VMS alias mechanism

[mwm at eris.berkeley.edu]

In article <859 at kbsvax.steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen at kbsvax.UUCP (Davidsen) writes:
>What really made this answer so obnoxious is that after all this
>overkill flame, the poster didn't say (or, could it be, didn't know)
>that the user can define his/her commands with a mechanism similar to
>an alias, and get no parameter checking at all. It can even be put in a
>startup file and done at login.
>
>Examples: (! starts comments)
>  $ check:==$usr$disk:[user.bin]check.exe ! binary executable image
>  $ redo:==@usr$disk:[user.bin]redo.com   ! DCL (shell) command file
[Explanation of syntax deleted. It's like a Bourne shell variable
assignment, with `:==' replacing `='.]

You forgot what I considered the nicest feature of the VMS alias mechanism:

	$ r*edo:==<etc>

will make any prefix of "redo" down to "r" valid as a redo. Similarly,

	$ ch*eck:==<etc>

will make any prefix of "check" down to "ch" a valid as a check. Nice
feature, that. I just wish some Unix shell (ksh, preferably) had it.

>Please don't count me as pro-VMS, I have used it since we got our first
>VAX (I believe it was S/N < 30) and still only consider it acceptable.
>I find the UNIX interface more convenient and the response far better
>for small programs due to the overhead of process start in VMS.

I've used Unix since v6, and VMS since 1.5 or so, and they are both
only acceptable - and each only for some subset of all possible
applications. I do find the Unix interface more convenient, but I
found the response for small programs better on loaded systems under
VMS. Not sure why (but I have my suspicions), and of course the load &
configuration (and which version of what is running) are never the
same on those systems.

	<mike