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From: rokicki@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas Rokicki)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: AREXX and ICP
Message-ID: <611@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Wed, 23-Sep-87 19:17:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocky.611
Posted: Wed Sep 23 19:17:55 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 08:04:28 EDT
References: <267@mitsumi.UUCP> <3939@well.UUCP> <20098UH2@PSUVM> <28070@sun.uucp> <774@sugar.UUCP>
Reply-To: rokicki@rocky.UUCP (Tomas Rokicki)
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 29

>> This was the whole point of it in the first place. So if you know
>> REXX you know AREXX and vice versa sort of.

> So you want to implement Yet Another Scripting Language that only a few
> people know anything about? What's wrong with UNIX-style scripts? Or if

Few people?  There is a huge base of REXX users out there.  Unix
scripts are fine, as long as you add full awk capabilities as well.

> you want to go whole-hog, use Xlisp. Modified lisps are one of the most
> common special purpose languages around (GNU Emacs, ADVsys, etc...). And

Oh, so now you want to sink the Amiga with those damn parentheses!
(I spend most of my time hacking Lisp machines, so I know and love
Lisp, but you can keep the damned parentheses.)  Seriously, Lisp
would be fine, with the proper extensions, but the thing is, REXX
exists and works well on the Amiga, and Xlisp doesn't.  By works well,
I'm talking about for general use as a scripting language and as
a inter-process communication medium; all of the necessary hooks,
including reentrancy and residence aren't in XLISP yet.

> given the typical memory requirements of IBM-mainframe software, I'd doubt
> that AREXX would be too handy for us 512K types.

Wrong, AREXX is tiny, tiny, tiny.  All in crufty hand-coded
assembly.  Why don't you call Bill Hawes and talk to him about
it?

-tom