I'm at a loss as to why anybody would pay good money for cheese, given that the Moon is made of the stuff. It's hard to understand the reason for something when it isn't true in the first place. The fact that you prefer other languages doesn't make them better.
Is REXX perfect? No way. But then, no language is. REXX has its strengths and its weaknesses. It's much cleaner than its competitors for scripting OS commands, but other languages have more expressive power and decent scoping rules. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 http://www.rexxla.org/Newsletter/9812safe.html http://www.rexxla.org/Newsletter/9901safe.html ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu> on behalf of David Crayford <dcrayf...@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 2:30 PM To: IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu Subject: Re: Heretic alert: I really detest TSO REXX (the language) I'm at a loss as to why anybody would use OOREXX on platforms where there are a multitude of better languages to chose from. If it's because of familiarity coming from z/OS or z/VM then I would advise them to take the time to learn something new. Most modern scripting languages can be picked up in less then a day. On 12/05/2018 12:13 AM, Seymour J Metz wrote: > I/O? The ANSI stream I/O functions are in OOREXX, as are equivalent methods. > > > -- > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 > > ________________________________________ > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu> on behalf of > John McKown <john.archie.mck...@gmail.com> > Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 12:07 PM > To: IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu > Subject: Re: Heretic alert: I really detest TSO REXX (the language) > > On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 10:41 AM, Kirk Wolf <k...@dovetail.com> wrote: > >> Yeah, I said it. I remember how fond I was of REXX when I first discovered >> it VM/CMS in the 1980s, when big hair and mullets were also great. >> >> Sure, on the surface it seems like a user friendly scripting language, but >> IMO that is only true if you compare it to JCL, CLIST, RPGII, and Windows >> "BAT". It does look much easier than the classic Unix shell, but not so >> much in practice. >> >> I recognize that many here have learned it really well and don't have to >> think about all of the pitfalls and landmines. But please don't try to >> tell new mainframers who have learned modern scripting languages how nice >> it is :-) >> >> The good: >> >> - it is on every z/OS system, and it has a good set of system interfaces >> ("environments") >> - it does have case-sensitive variable names, which maybe some people don't >> like ;-) >> >> The bad: >> >> - a single data type (string) >> - limited control flow statements; lack of short-cut boolean expressions >> - compound variables - the only data structure you'll ever need? >> - weird handling of undefined/omitted variables/args >> - variable name scopes? >> - packages/namespaces/libraries? >> - purports to follow the principle of "least surprise", but I often find >> the opposite >> - slow (although that really isn't a language criticism) >> > TSO REXX needs to be allowed to quietly retire to a placid village > somewhere; turning the reigns of scripting on TSO & UNIX to "Object > Oriented REXX" (oorexx). Of course OOREXX would need to be enhanced with > the addition of ADDRESS TSO and ADDRESS SYSCALL as well as some way to do > I/O to z/OS data sets. I don't really care for EXECIO, but it is > acceptable. > > > ref: > http://secure-web.cisco.com/1h-uqbWNXqq1CuCFKDqzvqcBgRLzHQhOJdj2QPbZDjibdycV5-gSQ4zBsxF-ySP4yE3Gnt8Ci7-gFOQl1o0QfWxnGLIAnOWtWwjFiWyUO6_oelF6zzlfdVJQGh93pcQfmj1CKFH1yFltii1H6D55GHVqhlsQI5G4T4c_fzxq5jUS8tGqqG5f8RAtojricobH62fLXMveqVtA58NnnyEI8J5ZFDLn1euLi04N_1B_wwkslkM66qjWZUUUgKLQa9ysGVaz_dSEPSqD4Jy8wDlXsjlYE5gs0zv8KMeW2NdylohDK5PH2h3D1BO5nS9Xy3MWHsivQyqjUZNLcZBpCljXLtIOX4npezWZi40DpWGg9OVec3RcKEsxRLjrx3H32tSLSPkiR-hnnC1DcEu-XXmWaxCqwWfEkmVEWQrN7qwdK2pu0XeO_qZ8uCxzHK_BzA7cQ/http%3A%2F%2Foorexx.org%2Fdocs%2Frexxref%2Fbook1.htm > > > > >> Kirk Wolf >> Dovetailed Technologies >> http://secure-web.cisco.com/1n0sGnuNhDW6q3fXx-PJT_zwbOkG5mdyrHujXRMNNl7mvKl5Xve_kqaLCr4c3THMnMEdrV1yAhJRWqk6ztNUqrFGZvoiNQUVtP_xSkRVWaaTzYQQvCyTbvlkQUXPnknsR22cMBQJERLsge_SWbQFs39npoYpHo3efptLwktjYxH3NX8PAK9oDvUHPpLBqrimbXG8ywzzNV_DFiUG3gntBT0E1P2p_TPl3grRW6PItAqncbeCMmsAOSgxehPiM6Jec5-t7r-EFbUooKlVkRd4jIoPs_SxfEXReTOJgloSU0-j82q4DY4B55eBqk1u4fT50E_97OkQxn5lRuHL36Xe3703XiFulTeLHG6xt1WgwuuybblSE2xcKi8oypvdR_E7UCmPexg4s8B8tstAk46elSl1OOCp4v7P4IKI2PwnsqKSsW93XDy3XJIQOALSAmaEO/http%3A%2F%2Fdovetail.com >> >> > -- > We all have skeletons in our closet. > Mine are so old, they have osteoporosis. > > Maranatha! <>< > John McKown > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
