From: DEREK@U.WASHINGTON.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: MOVE for Vms anywhere ?
Date: 24 Dec 92 00:24:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

Well, as near as I can tell, Oscar van Eijk started this thread with a
subject of "MOVE for VMS anywhere", and a short, 1 line message...

> If anybody knows where to find such a program, please let me know at
> nl0242t@nlzcl.decnet.philips.nl


Several "answers" were posted.  Carl J Lydick made one suggestion,
which another poster derided because his answer was "wrong".  Carl then
wrote:

      >The original question was not well-posed, since the querant didn't
      >bother to tell us exactly what this "MOVE" command was supposed to do.

To which Oscar van Eijk replied:

      >I doubt that; till now you're the only one who didn't seem to
      >understand that.

Supporting Carl's statement, Dr. Kenneth H. Fairfield writes:

      >    Not true.  I didn't understand (I'm not proud, I'll admit it ;-),
      >and I sent a note to the orignal poster _asking_ for clarification.
      >NONE was forthcoming, either privately or to the net, and THIS is
      >what we get: a seemlessly endless thread dealing with a fairly
      >trivial query because the respondants can't quite figure out what was
      >originally being asked...
      > 
      >    It's one thing when "querants" don't post a summary, it's another
      >when they don't even respond to (polite) private messages.  At that
      >point, I say screw 'em.

Finally, Oscar wrote:

      >What I was looking for was a MOVE command that works like a Unix 'move'
      >command.


What can we learn from from those interchanges?  Several things.  To begin
with, we should all realize that each person has a different computing
background.   Some of us live in VMS-only shops.  Some grew up with
some flavor of Unix, or NOS, or DOS, or...  Our histories will, of course,
color the way we interpret the postings we see.  

Insufficient detail was proivided in the original posting for everyone to
know exactly what was desired  (or to know that they didn't know the
answer).  I'm sure that Oscar thought he was being clear enough, but I
wasn't sure what he was asking for.  Why?  To begin with, "MOVE" isn't a
Unix command.  In fact, I don't know of ANY system which has a "MOVE"
command.  On our VMS systems, however, we have a MOVE command procedure
which performs a SET DEFAULT.  (You MOVE up and down and all around in
your directory tree, right?)  Did Oscar use our systems in the past
ten years?  I don't know.

Oscar's assertion that no one else misunderstood his intent is, IMHO,
simply wrong.  I believe that there are more than 100 people who read
this newsgroup.  I'll wager that a very small percentage of the readers
ever post or write to those who post.  We've got to remember that
reading minds is a very difficult task.

I think that Dr. Fairfield's comments should NOT go unnoticed.  A lot of
bandwidth has been wasted because Oscar wasn't clear in his first posting.
(Yes, I know, I am contributing to the waste.  (And to my waist, too, but
that's another story.))  I, too, have sent private E-Mail to a poster
only to have it ignored.  Perhaps the poster solved his/her problem.  A
brief reponse is, I believe, in order.

Sometimes I wonder if these non-responders have too big of an ego to
respond to those "imbeciles who can't understand my questions!"  If that's
your problem, back up four paragrphs and re-read the paragraph again
and again until you understand it.  :)

Is there any humor here?  Yeah, I think so.  Carl is going to have to
watch out for the fake posting asking how to fix the newmail counter
on this unix machine by using the ls command, or something even more
absurd.

[EOL]

-Derek S. Haining
 University Computing Services
 University of Washington
 Seattle, Washington  98195 
 (206) 543-5579

 DEREK@MAX.BITNET
 DEREK@MAX.U.WASHINGTON.EDU

[EOL] == End of Lecture.  :)