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REXX was a big deal when I worked on mainframe compliers at IBM. It was the system scripting language (think bash or DOS scripts) as well as the editor command

REXX was a big deal when I worked on mainframe compliers at IBM. It was the system scripting language (think bash or DOS scripts) as well as the editor command language (like emacs) -- and it was a scriptable programming language for apps (like JavaScript). The best part is that all of those parts could interact. So your REXX app could talk to the command line and execute code there, or to the editor -- and vice versa. Pretty slick. I wrote some great stuff in REXX both for work and for fun. Mike's stated goal with the language was to make programming as easy as possible for the programmer, compiler be damned! In fact, it was quite difficult to create a REXX compiler and that didn't come until much later. Where REXX fell apart for me is that it didn't keep up with browsers and the internet, which is where the bulk of development work shifted -- at least my development work! REXX was also strictly imperative/procedural and didn't include the functional concepts that were also invented by John Backus, a contemporary of ours there at the time. Today, functional is my religion and I can't imagine going back. I've become a big fan of TS. I wonder what Mike thinks of it?

epc 4y ago
I think Rexx would have been a great scripting language for web sites but IIRC the interpreter on AIX was hobbled in some way (it was never practical for me to use it for www.ibm.com for example). I think there was a lot of anti–mainframe animus inside IBM that affected Rexx adoption on AIX. By the time objRexx and NetRexx were available the world had moved on.
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avg_dev 4y ago
That's really interesting. I personally feel like JS as it was originally created is some sort of travesty (my apologies to those involved - I myself have written a tremendous amount of bad code under time pressure - and not under time pressure ;) ), but it definitely does allow for a lot of functional programming paradigms which is kind of nice. I don't know much about Lua or mruby but I understand they may fill such needs too. Also fun to note that John Backus was at IBM. I have some vague memories of BNF. I imagine that AT&T Bell Labs and IBM and Xerox were amazing places to work at one time. I do hope that things are generally trending for the better, in that ideas can be exchanged digitally, and that things are de facto more inclusive today, but I bet it would have been a heady thing to have a lounge filled with people like at those offices and then go back to your own office and noodle away on ideas that had been discussed.

epc 4y ago

I think Rexx would have been a great scripting language for web sites but IIRC the interpreter on AIX was hobbled in some way (it was never practical for me to use it for www.ibm.com for example). I think there was a lot of anti–mainframe animus inside IBM that affected Rexx adoption on AIX. By the time objRexx and NetRexx were available the world had moved on.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

avg_dev 4y ago

That's really interesting. I personally feel like JS as it was originally created is some sort of travesty (my apologies to those involved - I myself have written a tremendous amount of bad code under time pressure - and not under time pressure ;) ), but it definitely does allow for a lot of functional programming paradigms which is kind of nice. I don't know much about Lua or mruby but I understand they may fill such needs too. Also fun to note that John Backus was at IBM. I have some vague memories of BNF. I imagine that AT&T Bell Labs and IBM and Xerox were amazing places to work at one time. I do hope that things are generally trending for the better, in that ideas can be exchanged digitally, and that things are de facto more inclusive today, but I bet it would have been a heady thing to have a lounge filled with people like at those offices and then go back to your own office and noodle away on ideas that had been discussed.