Be an OpenVMS Application Developer
Behind the Scenes - An Interview with Roland Hughes
Why did you decide to write The Minimum You Need to Know to Be an OpenVMS Application
Developer?
Quite honestly, I wrote this book in order to educate enough of the market so I could write the book
I really wanted to write. If I wrote the book I really wanted to write and put it out now, there would be
about 15 people in the world capable of reading it. Before I could write that book, I had to solve a
problem.
There aren’t currently any pimply faced kids entering the OpenVMS market. While some of the
college students are bright enough, they simply don’t have the opportunity to learn on the best
platform ever invented by man. I’m currently 42. When I enter a client site, I’m “one of the young
guys”. In order to write the book I really wanted to write, I had to solve that problem first. Writing
this book was a year long effort, but if it is read and used, it should solve that problem.
What attracted you to the topic addressed in your book?
This is the greatest operating system ever created by man. I have worked on many platforms
throughout my career. None have even come remotely close to the power and stability of
OpenVMS. Writing this book was a way of saying thank you.
How did your own viewpoints evolve from the time you started the book to the time it was
complete? What did you discover through the process of writing this book?
My viewpoints were dramatically re-enforced writing this book. The one thing I came away with
was knowing that 800 pages simply weren’t enough to say everything I wanted to say, but printing
a book of 1200 pages wasn’t feasible at this time.
When talking to people who read your book, what are the one or two reader comments that
stick out most in your mind?
There have been many comments which I have liked. Probably the best was the one posted by a
college student on the Barnes & Noble Web site:
This is a truly astonishing work and a MUST for everybody who is starting with application
developing, be it on VMS or not (I can not tell for others as I am starting myself). It is not a book
where you will find many theories about abstract topics but one displaying everything you need to
know by means of examples, explaining each example's important parts in-depth. You really feel
the experience of the author throughout the text! This is a book I'd try to take with me if my house
was burning down.
Developer?
Quite honestly, I wrote this book in order to educate enough of the market so I could write the book
I really wanted to write. If I wrote the book I really wanted to write and put it out now, there would be
about 15 people in the world capable of reading it. Before I could write that book, I had to solve a
problem.
There aren’t currently any pimply faced kids entering the OpenVMS market. While some of the
college students are bright enough, they simply don’t have the opportunity to learn on the best
platform ever invented by man. I’m currently 42. When I enter a client site, I’m “one of the young
guys”. In order to write the book I really wanted to write, I had to solve that problem first. Writing
this book was a year long effort, but if it is read and used, it should solve that problem.
What attracted you to the topic addressed in your book?
This is the greatest operating system ever created by man. I have worked on many platforms
throughout my career. None have even come remotely close to the power and stability of
OpenVMS. Writing this book was a way of saying thank you.
How did your own viewpoints evolve from the time you started the book to the time it was
complete? What did you discover through the process of writing this book?
My viewpoints were dramatically re-enforced writing this book. The one thing I came away with
was knowing that 800 pages simply weren’t enough to say everything I wanted to say, but printing
a book of 1200 pages wasn’t feasible at this time.
When talking to people who read your book, what are the one or two reader comments that
stick out most in your mind?
There have been many comments which I have liked. Probably the best was the one posted by a
college student on the Barnes & Noble Web site:
This is a truly astonishing work and a MUST for everybody who is starting with application
developing, be it on VMS or not (I can not tell for others as I am starting myself). It is not a book
where you will find many theories about abstract topics but one displaying everything you need to
know by means of examples, explaining each example's important parts in-depth. You really feel
the experience of the author throughout the text! This is a book I'd try to take with me if my house
was burning down.
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