Not being able to contribute to make the release happen and no release date set forth, I would like to tackle a feature that I think is important: being able to generate "stick" versions of ooRexx from the generated ooRexx installation files.
The stick versions should be zip archives that users can unzip change into the bin-directory and run that version of ooRexx off that directory without the need of an installation. Combined with stick versions of BSF4ooRexx and Java this would even allow one to become able to run BSF4ooRexx programs off a stick! Just lately, I learned from some of my graduated students who started to work in companies that they were not allowed and able to run ooRexx scripts (let alone BSF4ooRexx scripts) on their Windows PCs where it would be a boon for them, e.g. controlling Windows and Windows applications from ooRexx scripts. The reason being that installation of software is inhibited on their PCs. If they had an actual stick versions of ooRexx (and in this particular case also stick versions of BSF4ooRexx) they would become able to apply their learned ooRexx (and BSF4ooRexx) skills for their benefits, but also to show off. However, these students would not be able (or know how) to create such stick versions on their own and hence are not able to take advantage of their learned ooRexx programming skills. At last year's International Rexx symposium [1] I presented the results of a little experiment to create stick versions of ooRexx [2]. The presentation also suggests a directory layout for the zip file creation. The name of the archives could approximate the names of the stick version of OpenJDK/Java packages to indicate the content, version and hardware. According to [3] CMake 3.2 introduced a built-in ability to create zip files such that it would become possible to add a function to create such stick versions of ooRexx. So, any comments? ---rony P.S.: There are other projects and initiatives I have been actively engaged and which take most of my time. Suggesting and being ready to invest time into this feature is mainly fueled by trying to help my students (and by the same token anyone else using ooRexx) to deploy the latest versions of ooRexx wherever they work from a stick. This will also allow colleagues to learn about the abilities and features of ooRexx as they can be shown in the context of the work place and what good it can do (e.g. creating, editing Excel/OpenOffice/LibreOffice spreadsheets, Word/OpenOffice/LibreOffice documents and the like). [1] 2020 - 31st Annual Rexx Symposium - Schedule: <https://www.rexxla.org/events/schedule.rsp?year=2020> [2] "Running Rexx from a USB drive": <https://www.rexxla.org/presentations/2020/202009-02_Running_Rexx_from_a_USB_drive-1.pdf> [3] Stackoverflow about zip and CMake: <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7050997/zip-files-using-cmake/53051874> _______________________________________________ Oorexx-devel mailing list Oorexx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/oorexx-devel
