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A recent edit changed case insensitive variables to typeless variables. There were two problems with that:
I am reverting the change and then replacing case insensitive variables with case independent tokens, including variable names.
In the same edit I'm including VM and TSO/E as bundled with REXX and I'm mentioning that there are potential surprises for PL/I programmers. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 00:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
The infobox shows Rexx as object oriented, which it is not. There is a separate article on Object REXX, where that paradign does apply. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 14:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The reference to NOVALUE violates WP:NPOV; quoting feature is totally out of bounds and the disdain for allowing bare words to default to their upper case names is hardly universal. The text should be rewritten in a neutral fashion, although it is certainly appropriate for the text to describe the controversy between the convenience and safety camps. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 15:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The first line of a Rexx script does not identify the operating system; it identifies the compiler or interpreter. There are several different uses of a special first line.
/* REXX */
to distinguish it from a clistShmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 20:54, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I think that many IBM people would say that REXX's design was highly developed by a community of IBM personnel and customers I think. This was before the internet was in use but PROFS provided email capability at the time. The fact that it was a community-designed language is noteworthy but I cannot find a reference. I hope an IBM person can. Sam Tomato ( talk) 17:40, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I would assume Sam Tomato is referring to the process Mike Cowlishaw used for having the REXX user community inside IBM vett new features and substantive changes. He has spoken of this many times, and remarked on how valuable it was for developing the language. See, for example, p. 334 in Mike's 1984 IBM Systems Journal article The design of the REXX language:
The most important factor in the development of REXX began to take effect when the first interpreter was distributed over the IBM communication network known as VNET. (This network links over 1400 mainframe computers in forty countries.) From the beginning, many hundreds of people were using the language. All these users, from temporary staff to professional programmers, were able to provide immediate feedback to the designer on their preferences, needs, and suggestions for change. An informal language committee then appeared spontaneously and communicated among themselves and with the designer entirely electronically. The discussions of the committee grew to be hundreds of thousands of lines, and these and the similar quantity of mail from the users were all kept for later review.
As time passed, it became clear that changes in the language were necessary. Using the network, the designer could interactively explain and discuss the changes that were required, some of which were incompatible with the then-current version of the language. The decision to make an incompatible change was never taken lightly, but-because changes could be made relatively easily and explained to users in detail-the language was able to evolve much further than would have been the case if upward compatibility only were considered. Several other important concepts guided the process of enhancing the language.
RossPatterson ( talk) 22:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
To me 'able to fully recover following a fatal error' is contradictory: if a full recovery is possible then the error was not fatal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.216.95 ( talk) 21:30, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
It is difficult to appreciate the flavor of Rexx as a scripting language without an understanding of the Rexx variable pool and the environment [1], especially the definition of function packages related to a particular environment. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 17:41, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 23:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)5.13 Variable pool
The variable pool interface consists of functions which the configuration shall provide to manipulate the variables and to obtain some characteristics of a REXX program.These functions can be called from programs not written in REXX — commands and external routines invoked from a REXX program, or traps invoked from the language processor.
The term file extension is problematical
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 17:06, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
.rex
=>
REXX as noted on
.rex, the fine print of "type" vs. "extension" should be handled elsewhere, it's no
REXX-issue. PC DOS used .bat
for the scripts and .rx
for its REXXUTIL-subset, Regina also uses .rexx
and .cmd
, the latter is slightly confusing on Windows, ooRexx might know .orx
and certainly supports .rexg
(GUI) and .rexp
(CLI+pause), and I find these details while looking at the PATHEXT
environment value on my Windows box. –
2A03:2267:0:0:452A:FA00:6D62:CEE8 (
talk)
11:58, 10 January 2017 (UTC)A recent edit challenged the claim that Rexx is widely used. It is ubiquitous on IBM mainframes, and there are open source interpreters for the Intel world, so the claim is plausible. Does anybody have any hard data on the usage prevalence of, e.g., OOREXX, Regina, in *bsd, Linux or windows? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 23:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
@ Polluks: A recent edit added a citation [1] to "VM/SP R3" that is for VM/ESA V2 R4.0. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to cite either the manual for the most recent [2] z/VM version or for the original [3] VM/SP R3 version? Should "TSO/E V2" also have a citation? [4] Also, do the citations belong in the infobox or should they be in the article proper? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 11:24, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: |website=
ignored (
help) -- from
https://www.vm.ibm.com/library/index.html
Using "best known", etc., is promotional editing rather than following the Wikipedia guidelines WP:NPOV TEDickey ( talk) 10:13, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
@Tedicky I do not agree that adding an external link to rexxinf.org violates anything in WP:EL. I think a referral to a wikipedia rule alone does not sufficiently justify a revert of my addition. The linked to website is an important resource for any Rexx user; more so, for example, than the link to OpenHub above it. Please revert your revert. René Vincent Jansen ( talk) 11:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
Ok, looking at it now, I agree. René Vincent Jansen ( talk) 10:14, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Rexx article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||
|
A recent edit changed case insensitive variables to typeless variables. There were two problems with that:
I am reverting the change and then replacing case insensitive variables with case independent tokens, including variable names.
In the same edit I'm including VM and TSO/E as bundled with REXX and I'm mentioning that there are potential surprises for PL/I programmers. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 00:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
The infobox shows Rexx as object oriented, which it is not. There is a separate article on Object REXX, where that paradign does apply. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 14:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The reference to NOVALUE violates WP:NPOV; quoting feature is totally out of bounds and the disdain for allowing bare words to default to their upper case names is hardly universal. The text should be rewritten in a neutral fashion, although it is certainly appropriate for the text to describe the controversy between the convenience and safety camps. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 15:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The first line of a Rexx script does not identify the operating system; it identifies the compiler or interpreter. There are several different uses of a special first line.
/* REXX */
to distinguish it from a clistShmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 20:54, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I think that many IBM people would say that REXX's design was highly developed by a community of IBM personnel and customers I think. This was before the internet was in use but PROFS provided email capability at the time. The fact that it was a community-designed language is noteworthy but I cannot find a reference. I hope an IBM person can. Sam Tomato ( talk) 17:40, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I would assume Sam Tomato is referring to the process Mike Cowlishaw used for having the REXX user community inside IBM vett new features and substantive changes. He has spoken of this many times, and remarked on how valuable it was for developing the language. See, for example, p. 334 in Mike's 1984 IBM Systems Journal article The design of the REXX language:
The most important factor in the development of REXX began to take effect when the first interpreter was distributed over the IBM communication network known as VNET. (This network links over 1400 mainframe computers in forty countries.) From the beginning, many hundreds of people were using the language. All these users, from temporary staff to professional programmers, were able to provide immediate feedback to the designer on their preferences, needs, and suggestions for change. An informal language committee then appeared spontaneously and communicated among themselves and with the designer entirely electronically. The discussions of the committee grew to be hundreds of thousands of lines, and these and the similar quantity of mail from the users were all kept for later review.
As time passed, it became clear that changes in the language were necessary. Using the network, the designer could interactively explain and discuss the changes that were required, some of which were incompatible with the then-current version of the language. The decision to make an incompatible change was never taken lightly, but-because changes could be made relatively easily and explained to users in detail-the language was able to evolve much further than would have been the case if upward compatibility only were considered. Several other important concepts guided the process of enhancing the language.
RossPatterson ( talk) 22:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
To me 'able to fully recover following a fatal error' is contradictory: if a full recovery is possible then the error was not fatal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.216.95 ( talk) 21:30, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
It is difficult to appreciate the flavor of Rexx as a scripting language without an understanding of the Rexx variable pool and the environment [1], especially the definition of function packages related to a particular environment. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 17:41, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 23:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)5.13 Variable pool
The variable pool interface consists of functions which the configuration shall provide to manipulate the variables and to obtain some characteristics of a REXX program.These functions can be called from programs not written in REXX — commands and external routines invoked from a REXX program, or traps invoked from the language processor.
The term file extension is problematical
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 17:06, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
.rex
=>
REXX as noted on
.rex, the fine print of "type" vs. "extension" should be handled elsewhere, it's no
REXX-issue. PC DOS used .bat
for the scripts and .rx
for its REXXUTIL-subset, Regina also uses .rexx
and .cmd
, the latter is slightly confusing on Windows, ooRexx might know .orx
and certainly supports .rexg
(GUI) and .rexp
(CLI+pause), and I find these details while looking at the PATHEXT
environment value on my Windows box. –
2A03:2267:0:0:452A:FA00:6D62:CEE8 (
talk)
11:58, 10 January 2017 (UTC)A recent edit challenged the claim that Rexx is widely used. It is ubiquitous on IBM mainframes, and there are open source interpreters for the Intel world, so the claim is plausible. Does anybody have any hard data on the usage prevalence of, e.g., OOREXX, Regina, in *bsd, Linux or windows? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 23:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
@ Polluks: A recent edit added a citation [1] to "VM/SP R3" that is for VM/ESA V2 R4.0. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to cite either the manual for the most recent [2] z/VM version or for the original [3] VM/SP R3 version? Should "TSO/E V2" also have a citation? [4] Also, do the citations belong in the infobox or should they be in the article proper? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 11:24, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: |website=
ignored (
help) -- from
https://www.vm.ibm.com/library/index.html
Using "best known", etc., is promotional editing rather than following the Wikipedia guidelines WP:NPOV TEDickey ( talk) 10:13, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
@Tedicky I do not agree that adding an external link to rexxinf.org violates anything in WP:EL. I think a referral to a wikipedia rule alone does not sufficiently justify a revert of my addition. The linked to website is an important resource for any Rexx user; more so, for example, than the link to OpenHub above it. Please revert your revert. René Vincent Jansen ( talk) 11:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
Ok, looking at it now, I agree. René Vincent Jansen ( talk) 10:14, 22 April 2024 (UTC)