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Rexx for Everyone
An anonymous reader writes "It's easy to get lost in the world of 'little languages' -- quite a few have been written to scratch some itch of a company, individual, or project. Rexx is one of these languages, with a long history of use on IBM operating systems, and good current implementations for Linux and other Free Software operating systems. Rexx occupies a useful ecological niche between the relative crudeness of shell scripting and the cumbersome formality of full systems languages. Many Linux programmers and systems administrators would benefit from adding a Rexx implementation to their collection of go-to tools."
REXX was great for OS/2, but in Linux, between bash, perl, and tcl/tk, why would you need anything else?
This sig no verb.
Perhaps someone should learn from COM ?(The implementation is a mess, way to hard to make controls), but the idea and the flexibility it makes are pretty cool. If OSS software did some more of e.g. Bonobo or similar, one might not need all these specialized python/perl/whatever for . Make the app export its interface to Bonobo(or something..) , make bindings for script languages to Bonobo. Instant fun.
Language Diversity.
... strong language evolution is best served by having a massive genepool.
... REXX may one day compete with CPAN, you never know ... ;)
There's no other reason. Your list could've stopped at perl, and it would still be a reason.
Its good to have diversity in your language choices, because different languages have different strengths and weaknesses, and having a good command of more than one can often make you much better, individually.
There's no reason not to continue adding scripting languages to operating systems
Or at least, so the theory goes. Of course there's the "pro at all, master of none" aspect to consider as well, but you never know
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Rexx is IBM's scripting language. Unfortunately I had to contend with it in a previous job. I advise people to avoid writing new code in this "language" wherever possible and relegate its use to supporting old code, perhaps that you have inherited from some defunct IBM dinosoaur.
Stick Men
That's definitely verbose and ugly, but behind the scenes, that code just "connected" to the "SYSTEM" port, issued the "ls" command, and sent some configuration information.
When you "ADDRESS"ed the SYSTEM object, you basically imported it's API into the REXX namespace. See that "PARSE PULL" bit? That command comes from the SYSTEM object, and isn't part of the REXX language proper. Imagine this code sample (completely invented and unlikely to work without modification, but still illustrative) instead:
Suddenly it doesn't seem quite so horrible, does it, when you realize that you can connect directly to any REXX-enabled application and control it as though you were written a script directly within that application?
I'm not saying that I'd ever for a moment consider touching REXX code again without a large monetary incentive, but you should understand that noone said "hey, this language has no redeeming values, let's use it!". It has its own unique properties, and while the ugliness outweighs the good stuff, it certainly had its niche back in the day.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
IBM has done a great job of evolving these systems with the times, but very few shops implememnet ports of common languages such as PERL. Just try telling your Senior Systems Programmer that you'd rather use C++ or PERL or write code for your CICS regions and they would think that you were crazy because they don't want to support that code. Ironically, when the shop I worked at starting interfacing MVS and NT systems for data warehousing, my knowledge of Regina REXX on the NT boxen made the production programmers on the mainframe side more comfortable. Regina REXX even had some built in functions for the Windows Registry! REXX can be a good intermediate language for mainframe programmers to be more at home on the target platform you are moving them to. Ah, memories... Long live IEFBR14!
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Python and Ruby are not scripting languages. They are portable byte compiled object-oriented programming languages. Hell, even Perl is a programming language.
Scripting languages offer a programming interface to automate the use of a specific tool. eg. Javascript in a browser, Bash in a terminal.
Python, Ruby, Perl and perhaps Rexx (can't be sure, haven't used it) can be used for general programming which might otherwise be tackled in C, C++, Java, etc.
Now wash your hands.
Most substantial applications - and quite a few minor ones - came with an "AREXX port" which you could use to send commands to the app to get it to do things.
Sounds very similar to AppleScript. I'm constantly amazed at the amount of control those little scripts can manage on OS X. Some even go as far as to become completely new programs, just by wrapping the original! Unfortunately, the syntax absolutely blows. Maybe non-programmers find it intuitive, but I always think of it as another "Do what I mean, not what I say" language. And those *always* get you into trouble.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade