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As a follow up to a previous discussion on fun vs discipline in computer languages and having gone through everyone's lists I noticed no-one mentioned Rexx.
Rexx was an interpreted job control language developed by the terribly clever Mike Cowlishaw (of IBM UK) in 1984 to replace EXEC and EXEC-2 on the IBM VM operating system (one of the best mainframe O/Ses in my opinion). It was also adopted as the main macro language for the XEDIT editor on the same O/S. I wrote all kinds of extension to the base XEDIT using Rexx.
It was great fun and you had to impose your own discipline otherwise it could quickly get away from you.
Rexx grew into a full language and was ported to OS/2 on the PC and then to Windows. It has been extended to have classes and all kinds of things apparently, now called NetRexx. I haven't used it really since my VM days although I've read about the new features.
Has anyone else used, or is using, this fun language in any form?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Never used Rexx but did assign XEDIT commands to PF keys when doing software updates that required changing hundreds of files. 
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I used it briefly in the mid-90s when I was working for StorageTek, and we used VM servers to control our big automated tape libraries.
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I wrote a tape automation system using VM and 14 linked StorageTek tape robot silos to support a massive TPF shop in Germany. Some PC-based automation software emulating 3270 terminals was also used to "glue" the systems together and it used Rexx as a macro language as well. Later, I went to work for the Automation company in the US. They called me, at that time, a "Rexxpert"!
My boss at that time had a strong accent and pronounced my name, Robert, as "Robot" and the tape robots as "tape roberts"!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
modified 14-Oct-20 13:34pm.
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One of the best products ever made, and resurrected StorageTek from chapter 11. Sadly sold to Sun back in 2006 and then Sun was sold to Oracle.
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I had a small amount of exposure to it due to a previous colleague having written a point of sale system in Rexx.
He went on to become one of the board members on the Rexx language association.
The enthusiasm he communicated was what propelled me into the world of .NET and object oriented programming - so indirectly I owe a lot to Rexx.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I have not thought of Rexx in a few decades. I used it in a previous job with a compiler (!) on a PC. I am trying to remember which job - it was during it late 1980s or early 1990s.
__________________
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now.
© 2009, Rex Hammock
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Looks quite useful - thanks for posting that!
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I used Rexx in the 1988-1992 timeframe. I used it with IBM ISPF to create menus for development environment and screens for QA to submit batch jobs.
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I remember using REXX At Ft Sill. We were assigned tasks, then not allowed to do them (for about 8 months)). So we wrote a D & D game in REXX to kill time (and the local orcs)
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, navigate a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects! - Lazarus Long
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On the Amiga computers, you could use a version of Rexx called Arexx: ARexx - Wikipedia[^]
modified 6-Sep-22 21:01pm.
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Around 1992 or so, back when my ANSI-escape-sequence-Fu was strong, I was co-owner of a BBS running on an Amiga 2000. When we added a 2nd phone line, I wrote a 3-way chat extension in (A)Rexx (SysOp and 2 users). I still feel that Rexx is the most comfortable (for lack of a better word) of scripting/interpreted languages.
After the internet pretty much made BBSs a thing of the past, I wrote a USENET client in Arexx. Rexx is just fun.
PowerShell scripting would be really awesome if they could be written in Rexx. 😃
Eagles my fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
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Many years ago I used REXX a lot on VM. I wrote small things like macros for XEDIT, and larger things like a source management system. I also created a port to VSE (before IBM provided it there, thanks to IBM for delivering the assembler source with VM). I loved it. I miss it these days.
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Rexx had the same luck of the OS/2. I have used none of them.
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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Until recently REXX (or to be more precise the open source ooREXX) was the scripting language of our comercial LabMaster FA product. We have now replaced REXX with Python, but I have written and maintained a lot of REXX code while working here. ooREXX is quite interesting as it adds objects to REXX while maintaining compatiblity with classic REXX.
Interestingly many years a ago we tried to recruit someone with REXX experience but we only managed to get a couple of CVs, both of which had very limited experience of the language.
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I programmed some utilities in Rexx for IBM hosts but although I liked it, it was only as part of a project and I didn't have time to go deeper into the language.
As an addition to your information about Rexx, I remember that since I didn't have easy access to our client's hosts, I tested my utilities on a curious Commodore Amiga porting of Rexx.
Sorry for my bad English
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I liked it a lot, used it about 28 years ago. The integration with Xedit and especially CMS Pipelines were very handy.
Frank
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I used Rexx extensively back in the mid to late 80's. It was such an improvement over EXEC-2 that scripting was fun.
The string parsing ability using "Parse" was amazingly powerful for parsing files.
A fun prank was to fire up XEDIT/Rexx in full screen mode on a terminal someone left unattended to simulate the VM/CMS logon screen and return humorous logon rejection messages.
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KEXX and KEDIT are still available after those many years from KEDIT.COM. I created countless scripts in many different environments and countries. The syntax is the same as REXX/XEDIT.
Simche Scherer
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I use it, lightly, as the macro language for a text preprocessor called PPWizard.
The language is different enough from my usual C#/SQL that it takes me a while to remember how things work and I do a bit of head scratching every time.
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I programmed a whole training administration system in Rexx, with online registration via VM. I wrote some core modules in IBM System/370 Assembler to keep a chain of blocks used to handle program requests without conflicts, and another to simplify writing to a green screen 3270 terminal. One power of Rexx is string handling, for which I have had to write my own libraries in other languages. I taught a class in it once to a large insurance company. I was very productive with Rexx. Best language I've ever worked with. Debugging was also great. I could view a stream of executed statements as they were executed and save it as a log.
-- modified 15-Oct-20 9:27am.
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I recall that Rexx was included in the NT Resource Kit for NT4. Never did get around to using it though. Always seemed interesting but I could do all that was needed with other languages.
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I was an IBM "Customer Engineer" in the early 80's and wrote a TSO/ISPF app (c/w menus) in REXX to let field service personnel access mainframe and peripheral diagnostic data without having to write JCL. I was stationed at the Bank of Nova Scotia datacentre
Later, when I was an Instructor at the IBM Education Centre in Toronto, I wrote an Interactive Questionnaire Facility on VM to allow Instructors to create and administer course and instructor evaluations. It also had a reporting component for printing out the results.
I love that language. It was a joy to use and got me hooked on programming. Enough to make me shift disciplines from hardware engineering to software. I've never looked back.
Thanks for evoking the memories.
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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