March 2005
Intermediate to advanced
720 pages
17h 35m
English
Content preview from Rexx Programmer's ReferenceBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 29. IBM Mainframe Rexx
Overview
IBM bundles Rexx with all its mainframe operating systems. These include operating systems in what we generically refer to as the VM, OS, and VSE families. IBM mainframe Rexx is not an open-source product but rather is bundled with commercial mainframe operating systems. The name of the product is typically written in uppercase, as REXX. For consistency, we'll continue to refer to it as we have previously in this book, as Rexx.
Mainframe Rexx is important for several reasons. Rexx was originally offered on the mainframe (specifically for VM/CMS). VM influenced early development of the language, leaving its imprint in various ways. For example, the stack is a VM/CMS feature, and many VM/CMS commands send their output to the stack. The stack remains a popular means for command I/O in Rexx today, and the free Rexx interpreters support the stack in this role.
Another important reason to discuss mainframe Rexx is the key role mainframes continue to play in many IT organizations. While the mainframe has a low profile in the trade press and in industry buzz, thousands of sites worldwide continue to rely on mainframes for their most vital business operations. Mainframes remain critical to organizations around the world. Rexx is the predominant mainframe scripting language. No other scripting language comes anywhere close to Rexx's usage level on the mainframe.
Many readers will face the prospect of porting Rexx code from the mainframe to other platforms. ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.