NOT interested in arguing about what’s “correct”, just curious about possible theories here.
I started using Rexx (then REXX) on CMS (VM/SP) when it was released to the external world in 1982 on CMS. At the time, we already had EXEC and EXEC 2, and programs written in those were always referred to as “an EXEC”/“EXECs”. Nobody but nobody [that I ever encountered, doh] said “An EXEC program” or “An EXEC 2 program”. Then Rexx came along, and nobody ever said “A Rexx”: it was “A Rexx program”. Meanwhile, in TSO there was CLIST, and people said “A CLIST”. Nobody (I think?) said “A CLIST program”. Then Rexx came to TSO and people there often say “A Rexx”. Which is perfectly reasonable, and parallel to the three predecessor usages. My question—and it’s kinda buggin’ me—is why VMers said “A Rexx program”! My first theory was that the IBM Rexx documentation refers to “Rexx programs”, which it does. BUT so does the EXEC 2 reference. (Ok, it calls them “EXEC 2 programs”, not “Rexx programs”, for the pedantic 😊) So I don’t think that theory flies. I’m stumped. It might just be an unexplainable linguistic oddity, but I’d love to hear others’ theories. ...phsiii ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
