On Tue, Oct 24, 2017 at 7:38 AM, David Crayford <dcrayf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 24/10/2017 8:25 PM, John McKown wrote: > >> NetRexx was born at IBM Hursley in 1995 at the hands of REXX's father, >>> Mike >>> Cowlishaw. It is the world's first alternative language for JVMs. The >>> REXX >>> Language Association's members and contributors actively maintain >>> NetRexx. >>> The latest release as I write this is Version 3.05 (April 27, 2017), and >>> the Version 3.06 beta was released on April 28, 2017. Mike is still >>> actively involved in the NetRexx community. >>> >>> I have NetREXX installed. But, as Mr. Crayford indicated, it is not a >> replacement for TSO REXX in a TSO environment. I have, on occasion, used >> it >> to write a "batch" program or a UNIX command line program. I can't do this >> much here because we are MSU constrained and don't have an zIIP (or zAAP) >> on our z9BC. So I get "dinged" if I show up on my boss's MSU radar >> > > Right! But if you had a JIT compiled classic REXX it would save you > money! But that won't happen. For starters it would need to be a rewrite > in C++ with a VM. It's no secret I'm a Lua fan and it interested me that an > IBM JIT developer has an experimental project that JIT enables Lua 5.3 > using OMR https://github.com/Leonardo2718/lua-vermelha. I could use that > to "supercharge" Lua on z/OS. But there just doesn't seem to be much > appetite for new languages on z/OS. Old dogs new tricks I suppose. I would guess that the lack of interest in new languages on z/OS is due to two main reasons. The first is that most z/OS programmers are rather old. They are most likely programmers, not because they love to program, but because it pays well. And they are also most likely looking forward to retirement. So they are pretty much in a "stasis" mode. I am going to be 65 in December, so I'm getting towards retirement. I got into programming because I was (and generally still am) in love with programming itself. So I _love_ learning new things. Which, in today's world, I direct onto my Linux/Intel system. The second reason is company management. As far as I can see, with perhaps a few exceptions, they simply view the IBMZ with z/OS as "obsolete". They keep around only because they don't want to face the cost of doing a good conversion to some other platform. That cost & difficulty is what caused our manage to reverse course on our "cloud sourcing" the z/OS processing via an outsourcer. And, perhaps a third reason is that acquiring and running "language X" on z/OS ends up being much more expensive than acquiring and running the same "language X" (say Python, or PHP) on Linux or even Windows. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- I just child proofed my house. But the kids still manage to get in. Maranatha! <>< John McKown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
