In <19970417.7DC0A38.8702@contessa.phone.net>, bouncenews@contessa.phone.net
(Mike Meyer) writes:
-In <MPG.dbeb63e1cab1e39989772@news.demon.co.uk>,
cyber_surfer@gubbish.wildcard.demon.co.uk (Cyber Surfer) wrote:
-- Yep, and the latest development is ActiveX (a new name for some old
-- ideas from MS, i.e. OLE,OCX,etc). ActiveX Scripting is particularly
-- neat, as it'll mean that Windows should be free of most of these
-- language wars. Anyone who wants VBScript can have it, anyone who wants
-- JavaScript have it, and so on, providing that the script language has
-- been packaged as an ActiveX script engine and your app can use it
-- ActiveX scripting.
-
-Yup, it is. I've been working in an environment where applications
-include a communications port for scripting languages to talk to
-rather than a scripting language for most of the last decade. Any
-application worthy of the name includes that facility (including web
-browsers and web servers :-). Most programming languages (including
-ports from Unix) include facilities to talk to these applications.
-
-The result is that you can write scripts in pretty much anything you
-want. However, the bundled scripting language (A Rexx, and I *added*
-comp.lang.rexx to the newsgroups list) was designed for this kind of
-environment. It sort of follows the TCL model of "everything is a
-string", and a bare expression gets sent to the default application.
-Further, the implementation was meant for this environment, so the
-interpreter is written as a small application that includes commands
-to launch scripts. The net result of this is that most scripts (mine,
-anyway) are written in Rexx in spite of the availability of clearly
-superior languages.
-
-- Keep it up, people. You're making Windows stronger by the minute, by
-- holding everything else back. Good luck to you - you may need it.
-
-Windows isn't forever. Probably not even for the rest of my life. And
-there'll always be a niche market of people for whom the "good enough"
-sold by MS isn't.
For those interested in Rexx may want to take a look at the abstracts to this
year's Rexx symposium (<http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/rexx/>) as it shows how wide
the applicability of Rexx has grown.
For the time being there are three main Rexx incarnations of the language
itself:
- REXX (available on any platform; commercial as well as freeware),
originates from IBM
- OBJECT REXX (with Warp 4, since Feb 97 for Windows95/NT;
a seven (!) year work on IBM's side to develop a fully procedural
Rexx compatible, truly OO-version even with multiple inheritance,
direct SOM/CORBA support etc.); still remains easy to use, yet
incredible powerful
- NETREXX (available on any platform with Java installed; IBM EWS -
"employee written software") by the very author of the Rexx
language itself: Mike F. Cowlishaw; NetRexx is Java "in the clothes
of Rexx", i.e. Java with the syntax of Rexx (Rexx adapted to the Java
OO-model where necessary, supplying most of the native Rexx
instructions and functions in addition), so Java-programming becomes
feasible for non-C++/Java-tech-gurus; in fact, it's so easy that it
may be used in addition as a *scripting* language *for* *Java*
applications
Rexx itself became an ANSI-standard last year, work has started to produce
an object oriented ANSI-version of Rexx, possibly blending Object Rexx and
NetRexx in the years to come.
A powerful, easy to use and easy to maintain language.
---rony
|