Lucio Chiappetti <[email protected]> writes: > On Fri, 14 Aug 2020, Dan Espen wrote: > >> Yep, there is a Unix version of REXX and it's a reasonably good >> scripting language. > > Yes, it's called Regina, and is required if one wants to use THE (The > Hessling Editor) as editor, which is a very good Unix clone of the IBM > VM/CMS XEDIT editor.
Heard of it, but I've seen even more references to oorexx. I remember XEDIT, from a shop that was using CMS for a while. I started it up and it looked like hell. Most distracting was a column scale right across the middle of the screen. Fortunately, I didn't run away and hide. I gave it another try and found all the hooks and toggles to customize it to my liking and it ended up being pretty decent for a editor running on a block mode terminal. > Back when using IBMs I never got proficient with REXX (I was > accustomed to EXEC2, and we abandoned mainframes quite early). Just > the bit enough to maintain my THE macros > http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/WWW/Opinions/myxedit.html I started with CLIST (part of TSO) with MVS. I got quite proficient but I kept hearing about how great this new REXX thing was, and of course, REXX was the future as far as IBM was concerned. So, I got quite proficient with REXX too. I converted lots of my stuff to REXX, but there is a CLIST capability that REXX is incapable of. I wrote some CLISTS that acted as both TSO commands and Edit Macros. I forget the exact command, but an Edit Macro MUST issue a command early in it's execution to declare itself as an edit macro... Okay, it's the command ISREDIT. The command is invalid in a CLIST but required in an edit macro. You can't test if you are an edit macro because you are not an edit macro until you issue ISREDIT. So, I wrote a TSO command named ISREDIT and had it issue a return code that ISREDIT as an edit macro doesn't. That way the CLIST could tell from the return code whether it had been invoked as a TSO command or an edit macro. I'm not sure if any of this would apply to EXEC2. I wrote EXECs but just for a short while. In case you are wondering, there are very good reasons for commands to act differently when they are an edit macro versus a command. I had an edit macro "P" for invoking a print utility. As a command you want it to bring up a panel and the panel should default to printing the previous dataset it printed. But when you an edit macro you want it to default to printing the dataset you are editing, and you want to issue an edit SAVE before you launch the print. The same reasoning applied to dozens of CLISTS that I had. So, CLISTS lived on for me. -- Dan Espen
