Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!newsfeed.fsmpi.rwth-aachen.de!newsfeed.straub-nv.de!news-1.dfn.de!news.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Bob Martin Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:14:18 GMT Lines: 53 Message-ID: References: <54bfd513$0$12978$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> X-Trace: individual.net NORQvOxJ1ZrV/m3f7u6VUApgPK/fXwSdmg/cZIDPCk+ks4VZS7 X-Orig-Path: BERLIN : news.individual.net Cancel-Lock: sha1:xbvXFDfF+e/PtpZSPzbeZQnSH8A= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:84468 in 734949 20150124 113420 Gene Heskett wrote: >On Saturday 24 January 2015 03:09:51 Bob Martin did opine >And Gene did reply: >> in 734904 20150123 225104 Tim Daneliuk wrote: >> >On 01/21/2015 05:55 PM, Chris Angelico wrote: >> >> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Tim Daneliuk > wrote: >> >>> I find these kinds of discussions sort of silly. Once there is a >> >>> critical mass of installed base, no language EVER dies. >> >> >> >> Not sure about that. Back in the 1990s, I wrote most of my code in >> >> REXX, either command-line or using a GUI toolkit like VX-REXX. >> >> Where's REXX today? Well, let's see. It's still the native-ish >> >> language of OS/2. Where's OS/2 today? Left behind. REXX has no >> >> Unicode support (it does, however, support DBCS - useful, no?), no >> >> inbuilt networking support (there are third-party TCP/IP socket >> >> libraries for OS/2 REXX, but I don't know that other REXX >> >> implementations have socket services; and that's just basic BSD >> >> sockets, no higher-level protocol handling at all), etc, etc. Sure, >> >> it's not technically dead... but is anyone developing the language >> >> further? I don't think so. Is new REXX code being written? Not a >> >> lot. Yet when OS/2 was more popular, REXX definitely had its >> >> installed base. It was the one obvious scripting language for any >> >> OS/2 program. Languages can definitely die, or at least be so left >> >> behind that they may as well be dead. >> >> >> >> ChrisA >> > >> >Rexx is still well used on mainframes. >> >> http://www.oorexx.org/ >> >> I use ooRexx every day, on Linux mostly, but also available on Windows. > >Can it run typical AREXX source? I don't see a single syllable on that >now 5 year old site indicating any such capability. AREXX is based on Mike Cowlishaw's original mainframe Rexx so I doubt there was much difference. ooRexx is compatible with Rexx and is actively maintained by current & past IBMers. A new version is coming soon. > >Example: Something needs to be synchronized to occur in the first tick of >the next minute, and has nothing to do until then, so it queries the >system for the number of ticks remaining in this minute, then puts itself >to sleep for that long. > >Is this possible in ooRexx? Yes, you'll find all you need in the utility classes at http://www.oorexx.org/docs/rexxref/book1.htm