Re: VMS support

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>]

>> OK, so we should get rid of the VMS code in one clean commit with a CVS
>> tag before and another after.  I think it's important for this commit to
>> be as clean as possible (i.e. it really removes all the VMS related
>> code and text), so that there won't be some future changes that remove
>> a bit more of the VMS support: this way the CVS tags will faithfully
>> include all the relevant code (and text).

> IMO doing it this way is too high of a burden and hence not very
> feasible.  It pretty much forces this to be a one person job instead
> of allowing it to be distributed.   There are 397 references just to
> the VMS string just in the C code + docs.  And there are probably many
> things that are only valid for VMS, but are not explicitly mentioning
> the VMS string.

Well, there's doing a perfect jog and then there's doing a thorough job.
A perfect job is probably impossible.  But handling the 397 references
to vms in the C code shouldn't be that hard, and dealing with the rest
of the references in the Lisp code and in the manual shouldn't be that
hard either.  Sure, you're going to miss some implicit references, but
that's OK.

If you don't want to do it, then don't do it.

>> I guess we should do the same for the Carbon port since it also seems
>> that nobody is interested in updating&maintaining it.
> Is this a go ahead?

Yes, but with the same requirement of a clean removal.


        Stefan