Rexx Programmer's Reference

Chapter 13. Writing Portable Rexx

Overview

One of the great advantages to Rexx is that it runs on every available platform, or hardware/operating system combination. Rexx scripts run on handheld devices, laptops, PCs, midrange servers of all kinds, all the way up to the largest mainframes.

This book covers the major Rexx interpreters. All are either free or open source or come bundled with an operating system. All support classic Rexx, the form of the language standardized by TRL-2 and later by the ANSI-1996 standard. Additionally, there are Open Object Rexx and roo!, true object-oriented supersets of classic Rexx, and NetRexx, a Rexx-like language for developing applications and applets in the Java environment. Figure 13-1 below shows how object-oriented Rexx interpreters and NetRexx evolved from classic Rexx. Beyond these free implementations and variations, there exist several commercial implementations as well.

Figure 13-1. Figure 13-1

Rexx's ubiquity and standardization have two implications. First, this means that your knowledge applies to a broad range of platforms. If you know how to code Rexx scripts on a PC, you can do it on a mainframe. If you program Rexx under Windows, you can do it under Linux, Solaris, VM, or any of dozens of other operating systems. In learning Rexx, you acquire a broadly applicable skill portable across numerous environments.

The second advantage to ubiquity ...