Running at around 800 pages "The Minimum you need to know to be an OpenVMS Application Developer" by Roland Hughes is a complete reference book for people wishing to learn, develop and/or maintain code in the OpenVMS environment. The premise of the book is simple: to create the same simple application in different common languages used for development under the OpenVMS system. These languages are Basic,Fortran, Cobol, C and C++.To accomplish the premise, Mr Hugues gives a rather thorough introduction to the fundamentals of the operating system whose topics range from the basics of logging-in to Symbols, Editors and their configurations and the OpenVMS's command line language DCL. Even goes so far as to cover developing a basic import program using DCL and indexed files. These first chapters are a lot harder to read for all those not too familiar with the OS itself and at times the information is given at a breakneck speed which might warrant the usual re-read from time to time. Once the basics are covered the author lunges into Basic and then veers for a few chapters giving us further introductions to OpenVMS tools like FMS, CDD, VMSMAIL, VMSPhone. The author also takes a look at setting up DEC's CMS tool for code management and the MMS (Module Management System-the make utility of the OpenVMS OS). The author continues then on to Fortran, Cobol, C and C++, and finally gets to the database programing section where he discuses both MySQL and DEC's own RDB database. Assignments for further study are included at the end of every chapter, and also included with the book comes a cd with all the code used in the book.The approach taken to follow the premise is very deliberate and follows the order of the chapters in the book very closely. I don't recommend reading this book out of order. The author himself on the introduction recommends that the book be read once through first and then used as reference. As an example the chapters where the author veered off into after Basic to cover FMS,CDD,CMS and MMS, are an integral part of the book and are constantly referenced throughout the following chapters on Fortran, Cobol, C and C++.

The author uses a colloquial writing style in the book that is easy to read. From time to time he veers off to give further insights to the points he is trying to make but never looses sight of his main objectives, and this is laudable considering the amount of information being dispensed. This is mostly seen in the form of anecdotal information sometimes to clarify his own code other times to give more of a historical perspective. This colloquial style partnered with the unique structure of the book makes for a very interesting contrast as this book could be seen as a reference manual but at its core its a lot more of a personal account on good OpenVMS programming practice by Mr Hughes. A fact that he himself doesn't hide as he relates his opinions on such practices as well as many other subjects throughout the book with a great sense of humor which makes for a much more interesting reading.Mr Hughes great sense of humor and insight culminates in this book's final chapter called “Ruminations and Observations” which has nothing to do with OpenVMS but is more of an opinion piece on a few subjects that touch all of us that work in IT. These subjects range from the real reason Y2k happened to offshore computing to avoiding a hellhole shop, and are bound to make more than one programmer laugh with glee and more than one manager blush.
In conclusion this is a must read for anybody wanting to learn to write code in this most venerable of Operating Systems.