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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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I used ole Rexx on VM/CMS at Boeing circa '89 
As far as mainframes go, VM/CMS was A OK by me.
XEDIT. Ugh. That takes me back. Not terrible. But also not great
We would always use our BIGMSG EXEC to blast each other's
screens full of some silly message.
Never used it on Windows, but used it on my Amiga 500.
They called it ARexx over there.
Fun at the time but I'll not be pickin it back up again sigh.
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I used REXX extensively as a System Programmer in a VM/DOS/VSE/MVS shop back in the day. So easy to use compared to Assembler and PL/I. When I was promoted to manage the application programming staff I built a full project management application with it.
The simple, natural syntax was really refreshing.
Totally off topic, I also enjoyed hobby programming in Forth, especially the excellent books by Thom Hogan.
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Ah yes Forth! What a fun language
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Heh, I loved Forth back in the day. I've written Forth systems for the z80 and for the 68000 processors (for industrial control systems). One was a subroutine threaded multitasking version used as an intermediate language. The development application on the PC would compile to Forth which would than be downloaded to the industrial controller where it would be compiled to machine code. Was definitely a fun project.
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Sometime in the late 80s I was working on a new CICS system for DOS/VSE, written in PLI. I was barely trained in CICS but still the "expert" as far as my team went. I was also the PLI guy, the other programmers were COBOL folks.
I wrote a system in Rexx to run under VM and generate skeleton code for transactions from text descriptions. That got enabled even beginners to create and test dummy transactions with the perspective users, iterating to get the UI to the point where they liked it, learning PLI as they worked with the generated code.
Of course looking at code was how we learned a language back then anyway. We had reference manuals but not books intended to teach the language.
My favorite Rexx feature: uninitialized variables had the value of their name, so there was no such thing as an NRE!
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I used REXX and Watcom's VX-REXX. I really liked VX-rexx and used it in a lot of my OS/2 programming. It was nice as was OS/2 Workplace Shell.
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I used it on my Amiga a few times. Lots of the Amiga applications had a Rexx interface. Once I migrated to Windows I haven't touch Rexx.
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I used it for a telecomms control and billing application I wrote on Amiga. If I remember correctly, I wrote the entire first version of the application in ARexx because the database we were using only had a ARexx API. I remember it having a GUI and everything. It even communicated with serial devices.
I then rewrote most of the application in C++, as it needed a better GUI, and C++ made sense for that. The DB interfacing remained in ARexx so there were plenty of ARexx to maintain. A lot of the business logic existed in ARexx.
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Back in my mainframe days, I wrote some ISPF editor add-ins using REXX.
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I had some fun with Rexx in the early to mid 90's on OS/2. It was ahead of it's time. Enjoyed it far more than batch programming.
I also used a GUI tookit called VX-Rexx to create GUI programs with Rexx on OS/2.
Good times.
- lviolette
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I loved VX-Rexx.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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That was a good toolkit. Those were my first GUI programs. All my other programming were C++ console up to that point.
But merging C++, Rexx and VX-Rexx was pretty powerful.
- lviolette
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What do you mean? REXX *was*? It still is, although rarely seen outside IBM nowadays. There are free interpreters available for Windows and Linux.
Even though REXX is still around, I will admit it is now on the wane, as Python can do everything REXX can do, and so much more, and Python code can be incredibly compact.
I used it most back in my days at IBM (1984-1993), and sporadically since then. It is a language well suited to mainframe scripting, and its integration into XEDIT and LEXX (remember that editor, anyone?) on VM made these editors the most powerful I have ever used to this day.
REXX transformed mainframe scripting, but it is of its time, and that time has passed for most of us. Still, it is a great language to work with, and I will always have feelings of affection for it.
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I wrote numerous programs and XEdit macros in Rexx back in the mid-80s. Originally, my scripts were in Exec-2 in VM/CMS on an IBM System 370, but when we got access to REXX, I rewrote them all. I recall EXECIO as being particularly fiddly.
Cheers,
Russ
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My first exposure to Rexx was when I had to convert a couple of hundred EXEC and Exec-2 scripts to Rexx under VM/CMS. I learnt XEDIT used Rexx as a macro language so I wrote a Rexx program to do 99% of the conversions for me. I originally had three months to complete the project doing 2 or 3 conversions a day. I did that for the first 5 or 6, then spent two weeks doing nothing but writing and perfecting the XEDIT macro in Rexx. My boss was getting worried that I had still only done about 10 after three weeks! Then I did the rest in 2 days using the macros. Another week fixing the issues and I was done.
I loved Rexx (and XEDIT), EXECIO not so much  .
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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