Thinking back, in the MVS/XA and /ESA days in UK I started with "a Rexx exec" (yes, under TSO/E :-) ) or "a Rexx program", but not "a Rexx" because it sounded ugly. "Rexx script" turned up less often.
Pretty soon people started assuming Rexx for almost anything interpreted, and not mentioning it by name. We had "an exec", or just ignored the language and only spoke about what it did, or added "in Rexx" at the end. Reminds me, back in those days, we had variations of CLIST as "see list" or occasionally just plain "klist". Takes all sorts :-) Roops On Tue, 7 Jun 2022, 22:58 Phil Smith III, <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
