OK, get your knives and arrows handy... I like REXX, but I don't find the language itself to be nearly as nice as scripting languages like Python and even EMCAScript (AKA Javascript). (Javascript the language, NOT the browser DOM context where it is most often used, which is horrible ). Tcl is also a very interesting scripting language - to me it is a minimalist approach to a scripting language that is meant to interface with other environments (REXX's forte).
Granted, REXX has fantastic z/OS integration (functions, host command environments, etc), but it would be very interesting to see a modern Python or Javascript port for z/OS that implemented a REXX-compatible native interface to functions, HCEs, etc. In theory this would allow you to use existing REXX function packages or host command environments with a different scripting language. In practice might be hard to do :-) But, it would serve to distinguish what I like about REXX (you can interface with lots of stuff quickly) with the language itself. A little OT, but the new Computer Science (really Computer Programming) curriculum at the KahnAcademy has some really cool interactive programming tooling: http://www.khanacademy.org/cs If you haven't seen it, its worth a look - if only to realize that new programmers will expect a little more than PDF, or even RDz :-) Kirk Wolf Dovetailed Technologies http://dovetail.com PS> For some reason, this REXX-related slashdot post made me ROTFL... Search for "Rexxperts" here: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/04/03/24/0034224/rexx-is-still-strong-after-25-years ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
