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Programming IBM IT Technology

IBM Open Sources Object Rexx 216

Posted by michael from the verbification dept.
dryeo writes "IBM has Open Sourced Object Rexx. IBM Announcement. Source code has been turned over to The Rexx Language Association under the Common Public Licence. Rexx is an interpreted language which has been included in platforms such as the Amiga, OS/2 and AIX, and most IBM mainframes. For a quick overview check out Rexx for everyone."
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IBM Open Sources Object Rexx More

IBM Open Sources Object Rexx

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  • More info... (Score:5, Informative)

    by jehnx ( 556498 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:49AM (#10535248) Homepage
    A lot more information on Rexx can be found here [ibm.com] on IBM's website. This is the main page and has links to courses, function libraries, etc.

  • IBM's analysis to open software (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ClosedSource ( 238333 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:51AM (#10535265)
    1. Can't make any money from it
    2. Doesn't benefit competitiors
    3. Open
    • If only more companies would do this in similar situations...

    • Re:IBM's analysis to open software (Score:5, Informative)

      by Firlefanz ( 30367 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:58AM (#10535345)
      *cough* eclipse [eclipse.org] *cough*

    • Re:IBM's analysis to open software (Score:5, Insightful)

      by k98sven ( 324383 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:04AM (#10535424) Journal
      I disagree.

      I think the main philosophy here is that IBM is not in the software business. It's not in the hardware business either. IBM is in the solutions business. That is, the hardware, OS, software, support and the whole enchilada that goes with it.

      (Sure, IBM had its years with the PC, trying to dominate the retail market. But they failed at that, despite still making a pretty darn good laptop, they're not the force they once were.)

      Out of this context of selling solutions.. it doesn't matter to them if the software is open source or not. Open source can even serve to increase their profit margins, saving them development costs.

      IBM bought Transarc and open-sourced their AFS implementation (now OpenAFS).
      Was that because it had no commercial value? I don't think so.. Transarc had made some money off it.

      Rather, it was because it was a useful part of the solutions IBM offered. And they could make more money off it as such than selling it retail. (which I believe they still do, but it's hardly why they bought it)

      Rexx, on the other hand.. Well, that's certainly a case of something they couldn't make money off to begin with.
      • >And they could make more money off it as such than selling it retail. (which I believe they still do, but it's hardly why they bought it)

        Exactly how did they make more money from it, through OpenSourcing it, than selling it at retail?

        Through providing "solutions" with it? How is the profitablitity based on the software, on part of the "solution", being OpenSource?

        They can't be saving just on development costs, in the long run, they will be dependent on random strangers to fix things, its pretty easy
        • ...they will be dependent on random strangers to fix things...

          That's the whole open-source development model for you. You may think you wouldn't want to depend on random strangers, but when a comunity builds up, these "random strangers" will be the experts. "Random strangers" contribute a vast amount of value to a huge number of projects.
      • IBM is in the solutions business.

        IBM is making copy machines now? Oh wait -- that's marketing jargon from a different product sector.
      • "Solutions" is annoying as hell, smarmy salesdroid-speak. Just say IBM is in the *service* business, and be done with it.

        • About "Solutions" (Score:3, Informative)

          by Reteo Varala ( 743 )
          Actually, solutions are to services as custom-made products are to assembly-line products.

          Instead of offering a service that a customer will decide whether or not they need it, a solution offers everything to achieve the list of goals a client requires.
        • Actually solutions is apt. "Services" implies you get money for something they provide over time.

          Solutions is "they fix problems you have". But if you squint your eyes, you see that they create half of them. Here are some of the things you need IBM Global Services to solve for you

          1. Anything involving EBCDIC (spelling?)
          2. Enterprise Java, with particular reference to Entity Beans, that were designed by IBM, so the story goes.
          3. Integrating Mainframe apps with modern code
          4. Web Services built using SOAP

          I'd poin

    • IBM didn't open Lotus Smart Suite or the other office products they killed.
      IMO Lotus Smart Suite would have made a better base for an OSS office suite than StarOffice (--> OpenOffice) with its all-in-one approach.
      IBM could have at least open the file format readers/writers. I still have a lot Lotus files and I can't open/convert them on my Mac. :-(

    • Re:IBM's analysis to open software (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bill_Mische ( 253534 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:54AM (#10535933)
      ...and this is a problem in what way exactly?
    • Well, I would disagree that this (and some of the other items which IBM has "opened") don't have a benefit to competitors.

      But, I have no problem with their approach. I wish every company that had software laying around that they can no longer profit from would just open it up like this.

      More open source software is always better, as long as it's not Microsoft Bob.
    • And, what planet do you live on?

      why would a IBM even consider giving away a product that they can sell for a profit? That's what they do: Sell software, hardware and support.

      Do you expect Volvo to give away free cars or the Disney corporation to offer free weeks at Disneyland?

      Contrary to Stallman's dogma, most people think selling software is just as ethical as giving it away.

    • A short list of IBM's contributions to Open Source (Score:5, Informative)

      by leoc ( 4746 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @11:55AM (#10536726) Homepage
      This list is not complete (missing are larger things like Eclipse [eclipse.org] and Apache Derby [apache.org]) but it clearly includes many projects that helps competitors and that IBM formerly sold. This was obtained directly from IBM's web site [ibm.com]:

      4758 Secure Coprocessor Driver for Linux
      This project is a Linux device driver for the IBM 4758 PCI Cryptographic Coprocessor, which is a tamper-sensing and responding, programmable PCI card. It provides a highly secure subsystem in which data processing and cryptography can be performed.

      ATM on Linux
      ATM support for Linux is currently in pre-alpha stage. There is an experimental release, which supports raw ATM connections (PVCs and SVCs), IP over ATM, LAN emulation, MPOA, Arequipa, and some other goodies.

      Abstract Machine Test Utility (AMTU) for Linux
      Abstract Machine Test Utility (AMTU) is an administrative utility that checks whether the underlying protection mechanism of the hardware is being enforced. This is a requirement of the Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP) FTP_AMT.1.

      Ananas Project: Summary
      This is the source for Working XML, a column on developerWorks with companion project code that demonstrates the evolution of full-fledged XML applications. This is distributed under the artistic license.

      Apache HTTP Server
      The Apache project develops and maintains an open-source HTTP server for various modern desktop and server operating systems.

      BlueHoc simulator
      BlueHoc is a tool that predicts the performance of Bluetooth wireless hardware technologies. BlueHoc simulates the baseband and link layers of the Bluetooth specification.

      COIN (Common Optimization INterface)
      Developers can use Common Optimization INterface (COIN) to build optimization solutions. IBM mathematical optimization researchers opened the code they use in finding the optimal allocation of limited resources. The code has many applications in a variety of industries.

      Channel Bonding
      The Channel Bonding project works on methods to join multiple networks on Linux into a single logical network with higher bandwidth. The project team works with the Beowulf Ethernet Channel Bonding project, where bonding work began.

      Consensus prototype
      Consensus is a joint European project carried out by six companies. The project is partially funded by the European Commission. The project goal is to provide technology to support single-authoring for mobile devices. developerWorks hosts the open source implementation developed by the Consortium. Detailed information about the project is at the Consensus Project home page (http://www.consensus-online.org).

      Content Query System (CQS) Project: Summary
      Content Query System (CQS). CQS is a distributed peer-to-peer query system for the purpose of discovering content or data. XML messages are passed between systems and query "engines" are used to access the data that is being made available on the system.

      Crypto Accelerator Driver
      Device Driver Support for the IBM eServer Cryptographic Accelerator.

      Crypto Interface Library
      Generalized Interface library for the IBM eServer Cryptographic Accelerator Device Driver. Note, this is a low level api for the Specified adapter, it is not intended to be an interface which is written to by applications. Applications should use the openCryptoki PKCS#11 api for interfacing to the token.

      Dynamic Probe Class Library (DPCL)
      DPCL is an object-based C++ class library that allows tool developers and sophisticated tool users to build parallel and serial tools using a technology called dynamic instrumentation.

      Embedded IBM PowerPC 4xx Linux Support
      This project contains packages which enable adding support for IBM PowerPC 4xx Embedded Processors to

  • Both Amiga and OS/2? (Score:5, Funny)

    by NoMoreNicksLeft ( 516230 ) <john.oyler@noSpAm.comcast.net> on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:51AM (#10535267) Journal
    That's like 2 flamefests in one!

    • Re:Both Amiga and OS/2? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:08AM (#10535461) Homepage Journal

      Ahh, to see any mention of OS/2 in print these days brings back mostly fond memories. I dabbled a bit in REXX in those days on OS/2 to get various little tasks done, it was a pretty good tool. Perhaps open sourcing it will be of benefit if it makes its way onto Linux or other platforms. Heck, I wonder if it could run on cell phones or pdas? A good scripting language on those could be very useful and cool.

      Now if only IBM would open source the fabulous Workplace Shell [wikipedia.org]!

      • Temp job for some men's suits store, I installed a few things. Think the instructions I got included running a few REXX scripts. I also own a few amigas, and have the boxed sets of OS/2 going back all the way to 1.3.

        Only OS/2 box of mine not in storage, is a microchannel 286 on the token ring segment. The Amigas are on the arcnet...

      • Re:Both Amiga and OS/2? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by bplipschitz ( 265300 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:29AM (#10535671)
        Now if only IBM would open source the fabulous Workplace Shell!

        Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes! There is *nothing* in the OSS world that works anywhere nearly as nice as the WPS. Not Rox, not dfm, not any of them.
      • I too would love to see life breathed back into the WorkPlace Shell.... IMO the best desktop environment to grace any computing platform I have used.

        But for IBM to opensource WPS, they would need to opensource SOM which the WPS heavily relied upon... Particularly the DSOM aspect which allowed weird/wonderful stuff like true distributed objects... where you can subclass a class which the implementation is on a different machine to the machine where your implementation resides. And it just works! You can eve

  • Tyrannosaurus Rexx ?. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gopal.V ( 532678 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:51AM (#10535271) Homepage Journal
    It's a dinosaur of a language .... Sadly NetRexx is just not the same thing.

    Sad that it's still not GPL'd ..:(

    After all it's only used on Mainframes these days ..

    • After all it's only used on Mainframes these days ..

      Not true! I use REXX on my home machine to update an inventory DB I've got in MySQL, and I used it extensively on my school machine for my work on my thesis (mostly data extraction 'cause the CFD software I was using, WIND, does damn near nothing in post-processing). I've looked at Perl and Python for scripting since I transitioned to Linux 2 years ago, but I still haven't found anything to rival the REXX "parse" instruction...

    • I remember at a conference a few years ago, it was talked about adding TCL to Rexx, the resulting language would be: T/Rexx
    • Though I do realize your intent for humor, rexx is available under the GPL (LGPL actually).

      Rexx with tcl bindings also exists, though sadly, is not called called T/Rexx, but Rexx/Tk

      You can find them both at:
      http://regina-rexx.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

  • Does anyone use it? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by halivar ( 535827 )
    I've never heard of it before. Does anyone have any personal experience with utility/quality verses other interpreted languages for Unix? I'd like ot hear some personal anecdotes.

    Is there, for instance, any reason I'd want to use it on Linux?

    • Re:Does anyone use it? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ElGuapoGolf ( 600734 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:54AM (#10535295) Homepage
      Is there, for instance, any reason I'd want to use it on Linux?

      Yes. You've used Rexx and have a lot of Rexx applications/megascripts written for your OS/2 or Amiga based systems and you want to migrate.

      Come on, that wasn't so hard to figure out.
    • Don't forget you can code ASP with Rexx too. To say it's only Unix is wrong.

    • I have never used it on a Unix system before, but I have done lots of work with it under VM/CMS [wikipedia.org] on a 370 mainframe.

      It is a somewhat whacky language, or at least using it to do tasks for VM/CMS is a bit whacky, probably because VM/CMS is a bit whacky. Mainly we used it to to add additional functionality to the built in commands, and to make them easier to use (VM/CMS commands make unix commands seem intuitive).

      My fondest memory is having to write REXX using the XEDIT [wikipedia.org] editor on a 3178 or 3179 terminal.

    • Re:Does anyone use it? (Score:3, Informative)

      by mirko ( 198274 )
      OS/2 Warp came with an extra CD containing an integrated suite, IBM Works, written in Rexx, it was quick and functional so I guess it's a decent language given what they did with.
      • I was working in an IBM AS/400 shop when Warp came out. We were running Windows 3.1 at the time on the PCs, but (if I remember correctly) Warp could natively or almost natively access the OS/400 filesystem.

        Kind of neat stuff at the time when that wasn't all that common.

      • Re:Does anyone use it? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @01:40PM (#10538072) Homepage Journal
        OS/2 Warp came with an extra CD containing an integrated suite, IBM Works, written in Rexx

        IBM Works wasn't written in REXX. It was written in C (and/or C++), and was originally Footprint Works (before IBM bought out Footprint for their banking software).

        Yaz.

    • Aye, I once used yon relic of which you speak..

      I went to work several years ago for a job mainly involving mangling files in various ways and into various things. REXX was used almost exclusively for this. I enjoyed coding in it, I guess.. right until the moment I disovered Perl, when I dropped that turgid monstrosity like a hot rock.

      REXX is sort of like Perl's retarded younger brother.

      REXX would need brass knuckles in order to even beat the crap out of QBASIC.

      If languages were pets, REXX would be

    • Re:Does anyone use it? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:20AM (#10535577) Homepage Journal
      I used it a lot when in OS/2, back in last century, and it was very powerful and clear scripting language. Used it in things like CGIs, system scripts, processing reports, parsing texts and even dbf processing.

      Compared with i.e. perl (to which i moved when started with Linux) is far easier to read, for simple text parsing is far more clear and scripts are easier to maintain. But if you need to get the output of other programs with it perl wins hands down (that was the first thing that jumped into my sight) and once you get the trick with regular expressions, rexx "normal" way of parsing looks very limited.

    • I still use Rexx, in the form of Regina, on my Linux system. It's a fantastically useful language if you want to do some text munging quickly.

      Every year I have to parse a set of logs created from an IRC chat session and make them into a readable webpage. I adapted a variation of a script I had written years ago on OS/2 to create HTML pages from template files. I've created an article (as in news) processing system with it. We have a script involving publishing webpages that runs every five minutes every da

      • Re:Does anyone use it? (Score:2, Informative)

        by ktistec ( 807911 )
        > Using Rexx in conjunction with Bash scripting I can accomplish most of the everyday tasks I face as a sysadmin.

        Hey, I thought I was the only one who used primarily Rexx and bash! ;-)

        I'd actually _like_ to learn Perl, but I've yet to run across a text-processing task I couldn't get done in Rexx.

        I'll often load a file into the (GPL'd) Hessling Editor ("THE"), which uses Rexx an an extension language. What the editor's native commands (quite powerful in their own right) won't do on their own, a Rexx ma
    • REXX is still alive and kicking on the mainframe (z/OS) platform. I use it every day. It is the primary scripting language for mainframe OSes. Many MF applications come with a REXX API that allows REXX scripts to interact with them. One product in particular (Computer Associates' OPS/MVS) is a complete system automation tool based around a compiled variant of REXX.

      Unfortunately, the language is dead on most other platforms, and hasn't really had anything new introduced to it on the MF for years.

    • Re:Does anyone use it? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by clacour ( 621903 )
      I used to use it on IBM mainframes, and loved it. Of course, the language I was using before was "clist", which I've typically described as a retarded assembly language. (That's actually a bad description, because it's nothing like assembly language. My point was that I would far rather have written in assembly language (for any processor) than write clists.)

      Rexx is a scripting language. I used it for things that in the Un*x world you would use a shell (ksh, bash, etc) for, or in some cases, what I would

    • Rexx is bloody useful (Score:5, Informative)

      by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @11:26AM (#10536320)
      The strength of ARexx (the Amiga version of Rexx) was NOT that it was a good language; it was that it allowed you to script any set of applications together into one seamless mega-application. That's like the UNIX-philosophy of having one tool do one thing, and string them together to do real work, expanded into the GUI arena.

      On the Amiga, applications support Rexx in two ways: they can be commanded using Rexx, and upon certain events they can be made to launch specific Rexx scripts. Rexx commands applications in a markedly different way from the normal UNIX way of working: it assumes the application is already running, and sends commands to make it do different things. If I had a mailer, a Rexx-script for it could look somewhat like this (I forgot the syntax, bear with me...)

      ADDRESS KMAIL.0

      # now commands are going to the first instance of kmail that is running. Now we'll create a mail. Rexx has highly convenient associative variables for this.

      mail.address = "johannesg@slashdot.org"

      mail.subject = "Rexx is bloody useful"

      mail.body = "at least, if all applications support it"

      SEND mail

      # Now we will store that mail in our mysql database:

      ADDRESS MYSQL.0

      SQL INSERT INTO sentmail VALUES mail

      COMMIT

      And done! We have linked together two already-running applications, to make a new, unique solution.

      Similarly, my mailer _should_ just run a Rexx script when mail is received. The script should decide what to do with the mail, which could be classifying it, testing it for spam, forwarding it to another account, or for all I care making an immediate hardcopy and faxing it to my holiday address. None of those functions should be built into the mailer; instead, the user can configure the scripts precisely for his own needs.

      This has some major benefits:

      - Tools can remain lean, concentrating on core functionality. As long as the Rexx-interface is powerful enough, and the right triggers are provided, any user functionality you can imagine can be added by interfacing other applications to it.

      - Complex tools for a specific purpose can be cobbled together by throwing a few existing applications together with some scripting glue.

      - The GUI becomes as easy to script as the shell is today.

      Of course I am not saying Rexx is the only way to do this, and indeed the KDE people are already moving in this direction with DCOP (I think). However, I believe noone in the Linux world has yet realized how amazingly powerful and useful this concept is.

      So in the end, this isn't about Rexx at all - it is about how incredibly useful the concept of scripting together sets of applications is. The language really doesn't matter, since the Rexx interface works on the level of exchanging strings between the script and the addressed application (i.e. it might as well be Perl, or Python, or Ruby, or ...). Rexx is only special because it did this so incredibly well on the Amiga that I still miss it on a weekly basis.

      • Re:Rexx is bloody useful (Score:4, Informative)

        by catenos ( 36989 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @06:30PM (#10541168)
        To emphasize this: The beauty of Arexx on the Amiga was not in the scripting language, but in the fact, that it was a standard on the Amiga. Any non-trivial program had an AREXX interface.

        Usually they supported running all internal commands, but at least you could trigger all menu items and hotkeys.

        A real life example: When "the web" (as in HTTP) first emerged, of course, no program had support for "clicking" URLs to start a web browser, because, well, web browser were unknown when those other programs were written.

        To teach my mailer to start up a browser, I assigned an Arexx script to an hotkey, which would query the current mouse location in the mail text. And then try to match an URL scanning back/forward from that pos (you could ask the mail program for the text lines). If it found one, it would open a web browser window and tell it to open that URL.

        This way I hadn't a clickable URL, but all I needed to do was point my mouse at the URL and press F8 and voila. I know clickable URLs are nothing special today anymore. But note, the interesting part is not that I got an URL "clickable", but that I could do that with a program that wasn't made for this.

        While today's mailers have plug-in support, you'll have a hard time to query the text and do something new, unanticipated with it. And before I get replies of the kind "but with (gnus, or insert favorite mailer here), you could do this and that to archieve the same": You are missing the point. The point being that there was a standard way which was supported by the majority of programs.
    • Hell yeah!

      Rexx is a _very_ nice language. It's easy to use, very readable and certainly powerful enough. Comes in "classic" and object-oriented versions.

      There may be some advantages to Perl, but it's readability and maintainability is generally so bad, it's not worth the hassle. (Okay, so you like Perl. Now try maintaining _somebody else's_ Perl script!)

      Python is a close enough replacement for Rexx for most of my purposes.

      Rexx isn't just a scripting language. Entire GUI applications have been written in
    • I did for quite a while! I even hacked together an "ipconfig" for OS/2 (OS/2 used the Unixish ifconfig) in REXX way back when. It's still floating around out there if anyone is interested. Beyond that, I used REXX for scripting user migrations from NT 3.5 to 4.0, login scripts, and pretty much everything else I now use Perl for.

  • Power... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:54AM (#10535305) Journal
    I once developed (and sold) an entire jail booking system on Amiga 3000 computers using off the shelf products and tying them together with ARexx. Everything from mug shots to personal items inventory to tamper-resistant wrist bands with photos and bar codes.

    IR-24 capture card, Art Department, Superbase & ARexx.

    THAT was computing power!

    -Charles

  • What is Rexx? (Score:5, Informative)

    by reporter ( 666905 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:57AM (#10535334) Homepage
    Rexx combines the ease (in learning) of BASIC and the power of Perl.

    IBM is a traditional American company, and back in the old days, IBM managers hired people who were smart and were willing to work[1]. There are many instances of data entry clerks becoming full fledged programmers and even project managers. Rexx, which was invented by an IBMer in the 1960s (?), is a perfect match for this kind of employee. Rexx is very easy to learn. It has no pointers or references (ala Perl). At the same time, Rexx has powerful facilities for string manipulation since most Rexx programs are string-oriented applications like processing queries for a database. Every installation of OS/2 comes with Rexx.

    Rexx could actually have precluded the need for Perl if IBM had open sourced it 20 years ago.

    By the way, the inventor of Rexx became an IBM fellow.

    note
    ----
    [1] IBM traditionally refuses to hire anyone without American citizenship. This rule was relaxed to allow the hiring of permanent residents. Nonetheless, as a matter of corporate policy, IBM managers generally do not hire people with an H-1B visa.

    • Re:What is Rexx? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pizza_milkshake ( 580452 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:04AM (#10535423)
      It has no pointers or references (ala Perl).

      perl has references [perldoc.com]

    • There are many instances of data entry clerks becoming full fledged programmers and even project managers

      I'll second that. We have IBM heritage and a woman I work with started as data entry. She's sharp as a tack (and can type on autopilot!) so they put her through some programming courses which she took to like fish to water.

      And to keep it on topic- yes, I've used some Rexx! (but I prefer sed and awk these days)
    • ReXX was written by Mike Cowlishaw, at IBM Hursley Park, near Winchester, in the U.K. sometime in the '70s iirc.
    • IBM traditionally refuses to hire anyone without American citizenship. This rule was relaxed to allow the hiring of permanent residents. Nonetheless, as a matter of corporate policy, IBM managers generally do not hire people with an H-1B visa.

      Where did you ever get that idea from?

      IBM has 320,000 employees worldwide, out of which about 150,000 are in the USA.

      Most IBM employees aren't even in the USA.

  • Ah, Rexx (Score:5, Funny)

    by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) * on Friday October 15, 2004 @09:59AM (#10535358) Homepage
    Back in my mainframe days, Rexx was the replacement for EXEC and EXEC2 on IBM's VM system leading us to say:

    "REXX is king of the EXEC's"

    Thank you thank you. I'll be here all week.

  • Object Rexx not a mainframe thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ErroneousBee ( 611028 ) <neil:neilhancock...co...uk> on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:00AM (#10535370) Homepage
    Object Rexx is not the one used on IBM Mainframes.

    Mainframe rexx is more like the (already open source) regina, only without the IO functions, and its been 'functionaly stabilised' (aka no new features) for a while now.

    Personally I cant see much use for this Object Rexx, what they need to do is fix the error handling and data passing problems in the non-object Rexx interpreters.
  • Rexxcelent.

  • Ah Rexx, that brings back memories (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Megaweapon ( 25185 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:02AM (#10535384) Homepage
    It had some odd quirks but it seemed like a pretty decent language. I worked in a shop that used it for some maintenance jobs, though nothing production. With the other languages out there now (and open) I don't think ORexx will catch any big waves, but it will probably help the odds-and-ends legacy shops. Hey, it couldn't hurt.

  • Common Public License (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DARKFORCE123 ( 525408 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:09AM (#10535468)
    Granted that Rexx isn't as useful as Eclipse is to most users, this is another great example of IBM's committment to open source.

    For me it is also alot easier for me to convince management and legal to use code that are related to IBM ( a reputable commercial company ) or other companies that use the Commmon Public License than code under the GPL. No offense to GPL but a business reality.

    I hope that this trend continues.

  • Rexx + KDE + DCOP (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:14AM (#10535514)
    I was thinking about this the other day. I used to write REXX scripts on the Amiga (way way back) to integrate a variety of applications. DCOP gives quite a bit of functionality there and fits very nicely into the REXX paradigm (without an application ever having to explicitly know REXX is talking to it).

  • What (a)rexx did that was so useful (Score:5, Informative)

    by jolyonr ( 560227 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:17AM (#10535543) Homepage
    The power of rexx (or the arexx implementation on the Amiga) was that there was a unified scripting language available across applications from different vendors, I added arexx support into the version 2.0 of the image processing/paint software 'Photogenics' for the Amiga, and the beauty of this was you could script applications from different vendors with ease, so if you wanted to batch process a directory full of images and you needed to run the image first through Photogenics and then through (rival) Art Department Professional or ImageFX, you could do that easily.

  • All the miffed Rexx developers... IBM's history... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Levendis47 ( 90899 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:29AM (#10535669) Homepage
    I did a co-op with one of IBM's software R&D groups in Boca Raton back in 1995 (just before they turned Boca the "Grave of OS/2")... at the time, Java had just been making waves with Netscape turning LiveScript into JavaScript (the bane) and the first baby-tiger book was hitting the shelves.

    I recall that IBM had an entire crew of Rexx developers who spent most of their time crying into their coffee-machine cups of mirth about how they had developed a virtual machine, bytecode-based system "a whole decade before Visual Basic and Java."

    It was a classic case of "we got their first and didn't do anything with it" that IBM was famous for throughout the 80's and 90's.

    The project I was on, for example, had developed a web/CGI-based mail/newsgroup/PIM system that included (I kid you not) a 3D chat system myself and two other developers built as a Netscape 1.0 helper application. Mind you this was before Hotmail/Yahoo! mail/GMail were even on the horizon... They demo'd it a few times and then broke the team up... priceless...

    Oh, look... my cup of mirth is getting low...

    l8r,
    Levendis47

  • Rexx vs Object Rexx (Score:2, Informative)

    by samberdoo ( 812366 )
    Object Rexx is kind of new and allows integration of object oriented programs on different platforms. It works on many platforms AIX, OS/2 (had to put it in), the other windows, linux and solaris. It is a very useful tool and is backwards compatible with REXX. People with a more mainframe background will choose it over perl (which is unix based in its syntax). It's also useful for talking to AS/400s. There are a few of those out there.

  • Dynamic scoping! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by [l0l]Bobo ( 39241 )
    Ahh, ARexx.. Brings back memories. When I was a teenager with too much time on my hands, I built a really nice graphical front-end to control my uucp and fidonet nodes (using WelMat, Juliet, and a bunch of other software from AMICUS people, the Ottawa Amiga users group). The UI was all AmigaVision, and ARexx was doing the back-end.

    And _that_ reminds me of one of the weirdest quirks of Rexx: it has DYNAMIC SCOPE!! The variables you have access to from within a procedure depend on where that procedure was c

    • And _that_ reminds me of one of the weirdest quirks of Rexx: it has DYNAMIC SCOPE!! The variables you have access to from within a procedure depend on where that procedure was called from. How's THAT for wacky

      Ahh. I wrote a little interpreter a while back (I called it MOOSE) that did that. It was an interesting experiment, but I never put in the time to make it efficient enough for the application I had in mind.

  • Value of *object* part of object Rexx... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Spoing ( 152917 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @10:37AM (#10535759) Homepage
    Rexx was quite handy under OS/2.

    OS/2's desktop (workplace shell) was exposed as objects and was very consistant no matter how different parts were viewed. Unfortunately, modern desktops including KDE, Gnome, and Windows XP either don't expose the parts properly or treat 'the desktop' and CLI environments as if they aren't dealing with the same computer.

    Without an OS that deals with the system as objects, I don't see the value of Rexx above any of the dozens of others out there.

    (I'd like to hear from OS X users if the GUI/CLI split is there or if both are fully integrated.)

  • Rexx [mindspring.com]
    Lexx [primetimesoaps.de]

  • One of the nice things about REXX was the way it interfaced with (in my case) the mainframe's network functions. Back in 1989 (bloody hell that makes me feel old) I wrote a multi-user-dungeon in REXX one boring nightshift.

    Matt
  • For a real blast from the past, check out the REXX FAQ that I maintained for a couple of years. Copies are still floating around the net, including here:

    http://www.funet.fi/pub/languages/rexx/rexxfaq.txt [funet.fi]

    It seems so... old, I guess. But REXX itself was fun to use, and I spent a lot of time using it and writing applications with (and for) it. It was very approachable, a good way to learn basic programming concepts. It definitely rocked on the Amiga because it was so well-integrated with the system. If O
  • It's like the scripting complement to OpenCOBOL!
  • I would hate to sound like a typical Slashdot open-source cheerleader but I've been holding my breadth and I really think that this is trully great news even if not exactly "new" for anyone who knew what had been going on in IBM for quite some time now and the most important question is of course whether we'll see full implementation of Rexx in the next release of Parrot [slashdot.org]--we can hope so because as we know Rexx (or Restructured Extended Executor--one has to love the old-shool humour of IBM developers!) being
  • Rexx was regarded as the best reason to buy OS/2 and I suppose all us nixiens ought to understand why a scripting language should trump a GUI (the Evil One's 3.1 offering back then). Now days it just reminds me of that naff sci-fi thing and of why I should buy one of those books about bash and do the job properly.
  • ISTR that rexx is pronounced like "recks ecks" rather than just "recks"

    Can anyone confirm this?

  • IBM OSS Cred (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CaptainPinko ( 753849 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @11:38AM (#10536511)
    I hope they don't think that they are going to get karma from open sourcing stuff that they just find laying around I mean sure it's useful but really it doesn't take anything of IBM to give it away. It's kinda like it's not really doing charity if you give something away that you were gonna throw away.
  • REXX (and then Object REXX) was my favorite high-level language (especially for scripting). With the demise of OS/2, the existence of Object REXX on other platforms was not freely available and so I didn't have access to this tool that made me highly productive for some situations. After searching for a decent Object REXX replacement for a number of years, I finally found Python - which I found to be a good replacement. Like Object REXX, Python has these benefits: (1) strong string handling capabilities, (2
    • Given the similarities between Python and Object REXX, I now wonder if there would be any compelling reason for anyone to pick up Object REXX as a new language. Sadly, many will see it as a "fringe" language and may never even consider it.

      Programming for the Windows API is somewhat similar between REXX (Regina) and Python. Plenty of open source libraries are available for both.

      In the past, REXX was a good alternative scripting language to DOS batch. Two features that I still use are exact decimal arithme
  • What will my former employer do? It's against company policy to use FOSS "because it's shareware and shareware has viruses."

    My former colleagues paid $1000 for a closed-source Rexx (which they use for doing numerical calculations on a UNIX workstation - go figure) despite the fact that I sent them a copy of Regina Rexx.

    Now that IBM Rexx is Open Source they're knackered. Maybe they'll port to Visual BASIC on NT4, which is the current company standard?

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