So > There's no advantage to REXX anymore, as fine a language as it is.
is not entirely true, right? Three advantages of Rexx would be native support of EBCDIC, native support of xSAM, and straightforward invocation from TSO? Right? Again, not trying to pick a fight, just trying to understand. Here's my motivation: I am trying to avoid dinosaurization. I am trying to answer the questions "am I being an old fuddy-duddy for sticking with Rexx over Python? Should I make an effort to embrace Python for the tasks where I now tend to turn to Rexx?" And it sounds like the answer is No. Whatever dinosaurism I exhibit is in sticking with TSO and ISPF, not in sticking with Rexx. (For what it's worth, when I speak with customer personnel, 100% of them, to a man or woman, seems to assume the computer world revolves around TSO for sysprogs and batch for production -- so it makes sense for me to be most conversant with those environments.) It also sounds like learning Python would not be a bad thing, but that it would probably make more sense to become familiar first on an interactive ASCII platform, and then perhaps bring the skills I learn there to Z -- rather than starting out by trying to solve Z problems in an unfamiliar environment with an unfamiliar language. Would others agree? Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of David Crayford Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2020 11:23 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: strange python announcement On 2020-03-29 7:42 AM, Charles Mills wrote: > I'm looking at Python on the Rocket site. > > Practically speaking, is Python usable from TSO or only from the UNIX command > prompt? That is USS only as it's enhanced ASCII (file tagging). You could call it from TSO using bpxwunix or something similar. >> There's no advantage to REXX anymore, as fine a language as it is. > In Rexx under TSO, I can allocate couple of datasets and then run a "legacy > MVS" (you know what I mean) program. Is that practical in Python? There is no legacy MVS data set support in Rockets Python port. There have been several internal discussions about it and it's on the radar. I don't work on ported tools so I don't know any more. > Not picking fights here -- inquiring minds just want to know. Truth is a lot of the guys using Python on z/OS don't know REXX and hardly ever login to TSO. They use a command shell, store their source code in the z/OS UNIX file system and use Git as the SCM. If they want to run a TSO command they can use the z/OS UNIX "tsocmd" command with scripting features very similar to outtrap in TSO REXX. Maybe the target audience for Python on z/OS just isn't the old guys who have used REXX for 30+ years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
