Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!psuvax1!schwartz From: schwartz@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Scott Schwartz) Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx Subject: Re: REXX: What is it? (AREXX)?) Keywords: REXX Message-ID: <1989Dec12.235944.7970@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> Date: 12 Dec 89 23:59:44 GMT References: <1585@bnlux0.bnl.gov> <1989Dec10.203627.10443@NCoast.ORG> <[25835d33:21.3]comp.lang.rexx;1@tronsbox.UUCP> <5888@alvin.mcnc.org> <1989Dec12.160943.16118@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> <1989Dec12.211158.25536@NCoast.ORG> Organization: Penn State University Computer Science Lines: 26 In reply to someone claiming REXX supported all known control structures, I wrote: >>Not really... It doesn't have continuations (like Scheme or >>Self), nor does it have coroutines (like the unix shell languages!). David Wright writes: > That's not quite true. If something can be done in other languages, >it can be done in Rexx by simply writing a function in another language >that CAN do it! If you want a random number generator, you could write it >in C. If you want a windowing system or pop-up file requester, do it in >some other language. That's the great thing about Rexx. The language is as >extensible as you want to make it. I disagree.... while you could write a simulator for Scheme or /bin/sh in REXX, it's not the same as being able to do certain operations directly in a REXX program. Certainly the things I mentioned are nothing like external routines written in other languages; they require features REXX simply has no conception of. Anyway, let's not get carried away with this. REXX is a fine language; not supporting every known control structure is nothing to be ashamed of! -- Scott Schwartz "More mips; cheaper mips; never too many." -- John Mashey