Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!rutgers!bpa!cbmvax!mks
From: mks@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael Sinz - CATS)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Re: REXX: What is it? (AREXX)?)
Keywords: REXX
Message-ID: <8963@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 89 23:02:21 GMT
References: <1585@bnlux0.bnl.gov> <1989Dec10.203627.10443@NCoast.ORG> <[25835d33:21.3]comp.lang.rexx;1@tronsbox.UUCP> <5888@alvin.mcnc.org>
Reply-To: mks@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael Sinz - CATS)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 62

In article <5888@alvin.mcnc.org> brooking@mcnc.org (Jim Brooking) writes:
>In article <[25835d33:21.3]comp.lang.rexx;1@tronsbox.UUCP>, akcs.dfrancis@tronsbox.UUCP (Dennis Francis Heffernan) writes:
>> 
>>      rexx is also available for PC's- in the MS-DOS world as (I belive)
>> Personal Rexx, and for Amigas as ARexx.  Don't know what you would DO with
>> it on a MS-DOS clone, seeing as how they generally don't multitask, but I
>> assume you must be able to do something with it if someone thought it was
>> worth putting out.
>
>I can't resist saying that REXX is, in fact a full-featured programming
>language complete with variables, arrays, ALL known control structures
>(if...then...else, do on an index, do while, do until, select (like c's
>case)), procedures, and about everything else one needs to write
>programs. It doesn't have a math library (tho hooks are available
>to link to existing libraries), but it does have an extensive library
>of character manipulating functions and a powerful string parsing
>statement. So it is a programming language. And it does NOT have
>mandatory declaration statements. A variable's type is determined by its
>usage. 
>
>PLUS: when the REXX interpreter encounters a statement it doesn't
>recognize, it passes it out to the "environment" from which the
>REXX program was invoked, either the operating system, or (in case
>of CMS and Personal REXX) the editor (XEDIT in CMS or KEDIT in DOSland).
>Other environments probably exist, but I've been out of the IBM
>mainframe world for a while and recall only a VM PASSTHRU environment
>(implemented by the U. of Maine). I heard a GDDM REXX environment
>was planned, but have no experience with it.

And, on the Amiga, many aplications rangeing from editors to database
apps to spreadsheets to compilers to etc.  And, in enviroments such
as the Amiga (and UNIX) it can communicate with multiple applications.
(At the same time...)  Plus it is REXX...

>
>Why use REXX? It's so easy to write programs it's almost embarrassing.
>There's a nice debugger built in, and the language is VERY rich. The
>result is that you can usually finish writing your REXX program while
>the PASCAL programmer is still coding declarations. (This is from a personal
>experience!). The last time "what good it it?" arose in this newsgroup
>someone commented that he'd written a complete version of the unix
>"make" command in a afternoon, in around 1,000 statements. Try that
>in C, PASCAL or FORTRAN sometime!
>
>Hear tell someone is working on a REXX implementation for unix.
>After recently writing my first shell script of any substance,
>I can't wait for REXX. I predict REXX will be the language of
>choice for most programmers by 1995. It does need widely available
>math libraries, and it unfortunately needs to shuck its IBM mainframe
>stigma. But it's a dynamite language. Try it!!
>
>					Jim Brooking
>					N.C. Supercomputing Center


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|      /// Michael Sinz -- CATS/Amiga Software Engineer                |
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