Aaron D. Yonka ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: The MCUG Utilities are a Good Thing.  I've always liked them.  However, I
: always felt that there should be additional "commands" (actually, just
command
: abbreviations) that users could use instead.  This probably stems from when I
: was a newuser and used Crash's login.com.  Gosh, I feel old.
 
 
There's a reason MCUG does not, and never will support additional
"commands" in the way Crash did.  Part of our agreement with MCIS states
that the MCUG Library has been created to *add* functionality to the
VMS system, but not to change the overall look and feel of the VMS
system.  In otherwords, we try not to make so many modifications to a
user's environment that they would be completely lost on another VMS
system.  Many of Crash's commands in his login.com were just shortcuts
to actual VMS commands, which are fine, but it's better if the user
first learns the actual VMS commands and then can either 1) create
their own shortcuts, or 2) get some help creating shortcuts.
(Note: we did for awhile support many of Crash's shortcuts in a
backward's compatibility option, but most, if not all of those are
non-existant now).
 
Anyways, there's two approaches to how you want to help a user....
1) Set everything up for the user so they can do what they want to do
quickly and easily and get out, or 2) give the user utilities to do
more advance functions, but still leave them in a somewhat native
environment, requiring them to learn that environment.
 
Neither method is really better or worse, that depends on the user and
what they want to get out of it.  But MCUG has always chosen the
approach of the latter, as our goal as an organization is to further
the knowledge of our members of the computer systems available.  Not to
mention, for good reason, MCIS wouldn't want us to have full reign of
a user's environment. :)
 
Anyways, that should help explain the reason why we don't have
abbreviations, just utilities.
 
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