[HN Gopher] Regina Rexx Interpreter
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       Regina Rexx Interpreter
        
       Author : rbanffy
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2022-05-11 21:22 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (regina-rexx.sourceforge.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (regina-rexx.sourceforge.io)
        
       | mftb wrote:
       | I remember Rexx. When I first installed OS/2 to try and power my
       | BBS one of the first things I played with was writing Rexx
       | scripts. I was sure I was going to revolutionize the command-
       | line! By automating Presentation Mangager or was the GUI
       | Workplace Shell? Can't remember, but I remember Rexx!
        
         | cptnapalm wrote:
         | My only experience with Rexx was on OS/2 trying to get my
         | Multiprise 3000 up and running. I was very pleased that it was
         | a plain text scripting language as the installer kept being
         | annoying about software versions and I could just manually
         | change the version it would accept.
        
         | themodelplumber wrote:
         | Similar here....I remember becoming a proper adult, putting my
         | huge PC Magazine DOS Power Tools book away and getting OS/2
         | Warp running, playing with Rexx. You could do Presentation
         | Manager windows and things direct from Rexx, right? It seemed
         | pretty neat at the time.
         | 
         | Should have kept the DOS batch files around, for all the good
         | it did. I missed all my non-OS/2-compatible games at home, and
         | got hired doing Novell IT all day at work.
         | 
         | (It also didn't help that all the OS/2 admins at work,
         | accountants who worked on an OS/2-based vending system, talked
         | to us Windows / Novell admins as if we were complete morons.
         | Fire phasers!)
        
       | karmakaze wrote:
       | Rexx is such a useful language. I used to use a lot of Kexx
       | macros for the KEDIT editor. The other thing I remember as being
       | novel is the 'whitespace operator' ( ) for concatenating two
       | strings with a space vs the dot (.) operator which does so with
       | no space.
        
         | arexxbifs wrote:
         | I think you may be mixing things up a bit.
         | 
         | Strings can be concatenated using either double pipes || or
         | just no operator at all, E.G.                 'String'FOO
         | 
         | will concatenate the 'String' literal and the FOO variable.
         | Writing                 'String' FOO
         | 
         | instead will put a literal space between the concatenated
         | values. Hence, the || is useful for concatenating two
         | variables:                 FOO = BAR||BAZ
         | 
         | The dot is used for denoting compound variables which, together
         | with the INTERPRET statement, is what was really novel about
         | Rexx IMHO: https://datagubbe.se/rexxtut/
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-11 23:00 UTC)