Python 2.2.2 on OS/390 V2R10

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

<posted & mailed>

Alex Martelli fed this fish to the penguins on Sunday 03 November 2002 
08:51 am:


> Me, I remember Rexx as a pretty good scripting language back from
> the '80s, when I worked for IBM -- Rexx is what first gave me the
> taste for using "scripting" languages wherever feasible.  I hear it
> also took roots in the Amiga world, and I assume it must have
> grown and developed in the 14 years since I last used it, but I
> haven't kept track.  But what do you think is "a typical kludge"
> about it?
>
        ARexx was essentially the only supplied programming language on the 
Amiga once AmigaBASIC was no longer updated (ie, about v2.x of the OS, 
or anyone with lots of RAM -- M$ had designed AmigaBASIC such that they 
were storing status bits in the upper 8-bits of address registers 
(expecting no one to need more than 24-bits of address). ARexx /did/ 
change the I/O system somewhat -- much cleaner than what my various 
REXX books show as normal IBM operations. It also took advantage of the 
Amiga's message-passing IPC system, with the result that it became the 
macro language for many applications (if you must, it was the 
equivalent of VBA in Office -- except it was still stand-alone also). 
Multiple ARexx programs could talk to each other this way.

        One feature of REXX that is often useful is that any statement/command 
that is not recognized as part of the language itself is passed to the 
"command interpreter" (shell) that the program is running in. No need 
for things like "os.system(external_command)" -- just put 
"external_command" as the statement to be executed. This comes in real 
handy if the "command interpreter" is really another application -- the 
commands then can be commands for that application

        ORexx is available (if you can find the old book) for both W9x and 
OS/2.

        There was a Unix implementation of REXX: uni-REXX from "The 
Workstation Group".

        Also, a version of REXX had been ported to run under VMS. 

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