On 7 Mar 2023, at 08:45, David Crayford <[email protected]> wrote: > > The industry has spoken! Python is the most popular programming language in > the world so haters will have to just suck that up.
That is a very funny statement. Nobody hates Python - the hype will blow over like Perl, Visual Basic, Ruby, COBOL, etc. O wait, there is still tons of COBOL around, like there will be tons of Rexx around for ages. While we do not hate Python (it was a great television series in the seventies) we can do without the attacks on Rexx. Like the JCL replacement from IBM’s Clunkification department, the examples will speak for themselves. Look at it in all its glory, coming in at 190 lines plus lots of imported zooutils, at https://github.com/IBM/zoau-samples/blob/main/samples/smpe_list.py - it replaces about 15 lines of JCL. If that was meant to undercut the credibility of Python, it is a very, very clever attempt by an old mainframer. If I now ask ChatGPT for a script to list some SMP/E zones, it shows me: /* REXX program to list the status of all SYSMODs */ /* Set up the SMP/E commands to be executed */ smp_cmds.1 = "SET BDY(GLOBAL)." smp_cmds.2 = "LIST SYSMOD(*) WHERE(SYMBOLICDATE GT 0)." smp_cmds.3 = "SET BDY(LOCAL)." /* Write the SMP/E commands to a temporary data set */ "ALLOC F(SMPCMD) NEW REUSE SPACE(80 80) TRK" do i = 1 to smp_cmds.0 "EXECIO 1 DISKW SMPCMD (STEM smp_cmds. " i ")" end "FREE F(SMPCMD)" /* Invoke SMP/E to execute the commands */ "ADDRESS TSO" "CALL 'SYS1.SMP.EB2A.EXEC(SMPXMSGS)'" "EXECIO 0 DISKR SMPXMSGS (STEM smp_msgs. FINIS)" "FREE F(SMPXMSGS)" /* Display the results */ do i = 1 to smp_msgs.0 say smp_msgs.i end I rest my case. Still not sure why JCL needs to be replaced but hey. The curious case with Rexx is that it has been under attack from the beginning, like all good things within IBM, like VM and JES2. Later, in OS/2, it was relentlessly attacked by Microsoft and almost left out of it, only to be introduced in the IBM EE “Extended Edition”, possibly because it was better than BASIC of the day. Rexx always has been the tool of systems staff, who, while disallowed to do any programming, saved many an application (and company) with Rexx, and rubber bands. This is why this is such a strange forum to attack Rexx on, and I wonder if you just cannot help yourself, or it is some officially sanctioned action, somewhat akin to the movement of replacing some easy to use SMP/E JCL (the plot comes together here, the unconscious hints give at away) with endless dialogs, like young IT people want to be turned into clerks doing spreadsheets. So why don’t you indeed port ooRexx to z/OS, and see what happens? You can change the threads structure, VS Studio Code has nice tools for that. It would be a constructive addition to the discussion. And it would prove some points, like porting to z/OS is easy and IBM now embraces open source, and that that decision to not port Object Rexx has been walked back. best regards, René. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
