Consider Rexx for Scripting (2022)

Re:Consider Rexx for Scripting (2022) by YZF on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @02:54PM (#42392091)

I love Rexx and have used it extensively on IBM mainframes and PC's way back. That said it seems like the ecosystem has moved away from the the types of integrations where Rexx was strong. On IBM mainframes it was always the tight integration with things like CMS and XEDIT that made it great.

If you're using Rexx today on e.g. MacOS or Linux I'd be interested in hearing how that's working for you... My goto for scripting these days would be Python in those environments (or bash).

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Re:Consider Rexx for Scripting (2022) by dhosek on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @03:09PM (#42392296)

Oh man, I remember using an XEDIT+Rexx email client back in the day on VM/CMS that was mind blowing for its time. The stuff available for Unix and VMS paled in comparison.

But it definitely was the tight integration with XEDIT and the OS that made Rexx so perfect. I don’t think it would work so well for my modern use cases.

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Re:Consider Rexx for Scripting (2022) by ubermonkey on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @03:41PM (#42392710)

I had the same thought. Loved REXX for work on the 3090 I had an account on in college, but haven't really considered it much since.

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Re:Consider Rexx for Scripting (2022) by wigster on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @03:15PM (#42392379)

my first program was a mastermind clone written in rexx when i was working the night shift on an ibm mainframe as a tape monkey. happy days.

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Re:Consider Rexx for Scripting (2022) by xarope on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @10:56PM (#42396068)

I'd echo what you said, without that ecosystem and integration, perl and python are far better. Personal history: I went from perl in college to REXX because of IBM. However, once I left IBM, I went back to perl and python.

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