I've been following this thread and one thing that has yet to appear, or I missed it, has to do with 4GL's and the drive, at one point, for languages that were more human oriented - those that could be written more like a normal sentence or phrase, and avoid the technical jargon/gobblygook/syntax. As I recall in the 1980's there were a few but nothing came of them, instead we have languages that have their own syntax, and which require extensive learning but nothing that allows a non-programmer to actually generate a complex business program.
>From my experience, REXX has many of the 4GL goals as the syntax isn't overly >complex and is something a non-programmer can comprehend rather easily. As has >been previously mentioned in this thread, REXX can be more readily learned and >used than the majority of the current languages. It isn't perfect but it works >very well. My $0.01 on the topic. Lionel B. Dyck <>< Website: https://www.lbdsoftware.com Github: https://github.com/lbdyck “Worry more about your character than your reputation. Character is what you are, reputation merely what others think you are.” - - - John Wooden -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Matt Hogstrom Sent: Friday, January 7, 2022 10:21 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: ... Re: Top 8 Reasons for using Python instead of REXX for z/OS I agree with your point Bob; we don’t know the future. I was merely suggesting that we need to adapt to the changes not hold on to the past. Some things withstand the test of time and others stay behind. I suspect none of us have 3270 terminals but use emulators and I do a lot of my work through SSH and not OMVS when in USS. Python is a newcomer and quite popular … needs updating for Z and it won’t replace REXX, it will be a new choice for administrators just like Ansible is popular for automation (not the same as System Automation) lots of repetitive tasks. Its a cool future we’re moving into. Matt Hogstrom [email protected] +1-919-656-0564 PGP Key: 0x90ECB270 Facebook <https://facebook.com/matt.hogstrom> LinkedIn <https://linkedin/in/mhogstrom> Twitter <https://twitter.com/hogstrom> “It may be cognitive, but, it ain’t intuitive." — Hogstrom > On Jan 7, 2022, at 10:05 AM, Bob Bridges <[email protected]> wrote: > > Not disagreeing with your main point, Matt. But to be fair, most of the > problem is that NO ONE KNOWS where we'll be fifty years later. Betamax lost > (mostly), so a lot of time and investment and material is wasted. Oh, well; > that's how it works; you try things out. > > I couldn't count the number of times I've ripped out a beautifully-conceived > function, or method, or entire class, because during the creation of a > complex tool I realized that it wasn't what I needed after all. Sure, I try > to think ahead, and the more I do this I suppose the better I must be getting > at it. But I expect I will always be writing code, then tearing it out and > rewriting it from scratch. I can do that when I'm writing the whole thing > myself; if I were writing classes for a team I suppose that wouldn't happen > so often, because they'd get committed to an old design and want to keep it > even if a new way would be better. Which is sort of what happened to JCL, > though on a different scale. > > --- > Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313 > > /* While we were borrowing from the customs of other lands, who was > the idiot who passed up the siesta? */ > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On > Behalf Of Matt Hogstrom > Sent: Friday, January 7, 2022 07:45 > > I concur. The challenge as we all know is that technology evolves over time > and is implemented in what we know and works versus where we’ll be fifty > years later. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
