From: steve@dbaccess.com (Steve Suttles)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Suggestions for VMS/DCL manuals
Date: 22 Jan 93 21:26:20 GMT
Organization: Cross Access Corp., Santa Clara, CA
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

tshin@husc8.harvard.edu (Tae Shin) writes:
: Hi!  I'm sort of novice to the world of VAX/VMS and I was wondering if there 
: were any good books about using VMS/DCL and system administration.  Our lab has
: a VAXstation 3500 using V5.4-2.  If there's a FAQ and/or FTP site with this 
: information, please let me know about it.  Thanks ahead of time for any help
: you can provide.
: 
: T.B. Shin
: Department of Chemistry
: Harvard University
: tshin@husc8.harvard.edu

If you are the new system administrator, congratulations!  Among your newfound
treasures you will find a six-foot-tall bookcase full of grey binders.  Start
at the one marked "Intro to Documentation".

If you are not the system administrator, and you don't yet know how to use DCL,
you have no business worrying about how to make it run faster if you can't make
it do anything useful yet.  And the place to start is asking the real system
administrator where the documentation is.  Start at the one marked "Intro to
Documentation".  You'll find the "User's Manual" to be very helpful in either
of these two cases.

If you do not have or do not have access to the documentation, you have one of
two problems.

You are the systems administrator.  Remove the power cord from the back of the
system unit.  Hide it.  Go back to whoever told you you had a complete system
and inform them that there are a great number of parts missing, and the system
is completely inoperable.  Don't plug it back in until you get some
documentation.

You are not the systems administrator.  Instead, you have a systems
adminstrator who is an incompetent boob (or maybe a competent boob, but a boob
nonetheless).  If he does not have documentation, show him the other option and
suggest he try it.  If he does, but will not share, he is busy feeding his own
ego.  You are unlikely to resolve this problem.  Do without, or update your
resume.  Working on a system without documentation is an untenable position.

Everything's fine where the documentation is, but you're not there.  It is not
a matter of another office, it is a county away.  Your options (actually, the
options belonging to whoever holds the checkbook) are to get additional
documentation for the new site, or get a quantity discount on telephone calls
to the office of the guy who has the documentation.  Or do without or update
your resume, as before.

I have never understood the kind of people who buy computers but no
documentation, but when they buy puzzles, they pay extra for instructions on
how to solve it.  Why would someone get a tool, whether a computer or a
chainsaw, without getting a handle on it?  (and this is a VERY close analogy).

sas
-- 
Steve Suttles                Internet:  steve@dbaccess.com      Dr. DCL is IN!
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