Rexx Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer)

By Howard Fosdick

Book Overview

Originally developed for mainframes but highly portable across platforms-from servers to desktops to handhelds-Rexx is an easy yet powerful scripting language that's widely used for rapid application development. Covers Rexx interpreters for specialized functions-object-oriented, mainframe, and handheld. There are 8 different free Rexx interpreters optimized for different platforms and uses. This book shows how to use them all. Shows how to script for GUIs, databases, web servers, XML, and other interfaces. Details how to make the best use of Rexx tools and interfaces, with examples for both Linux and Windows. Includes a tutorial with lots of examples to help people get up and running.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764579967
• ISBN13: 9780764579967
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Wrox Press
• Length: 686 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Worth It

This book tries to cover as much about Rexx as possible in one book. It succeeds well considering the challenge. PROS: Thorough coverage of the Rexx language. Lots of coding examples, good tutorial, very comprehensive reference material. Covers some special topics like interfaces, programming style, error-handling techniques, and portability issues. Includes a lot on Windows and Linux. I had fun with the section on...

programming REXX

As a mainframe REXX programmer, I was pleased to find a new REXX book. The book begins with a tutorial on standard REXX features. It then gets into different platforms, interfaces, function libraries and object REXX. The dozen appendices give coding guides to functions, instructions and extended functions. I found the example programs clear enough and easy to run on my pc. The book tells you where to download them from...

Best Rexx book ever

I have used REXX extensively on mainframe and PCs. I have bought about every REXX book and manual I could find in the last 15 years. This book is not only the best REXX book ever, but one of the best computer books. As stated by the author below, the beginning is a very good introduction to all the basics with easy to follow examples. The remainder is excellent at teaching techniques. If you only ever have one Rexx book this...

Author Response

As the author, I'd like to respond to the review entitled "Sloppy code, typo's -- unsafe for beginners" that appears below. The reviewer criticizes the book based on only a partial reading of it. As he states, his review is based on what "...I've encountered so far," to page 214. Reading the entire 700 page book yields a different perspective. As the book explains, its first eight chapters are a simple tutorial on Rexx...

A good reference

What's nice about this book is that you can code from it. It's got 13 appendixes that cover REXX instructions, functions, external functions, and so on, all with examples of how to code them. The book contains many complete example scripts. These are written in a style that seems to favour 'readability' and 'ease of use' over 'portability.' I would tend more to favour portability, but then again I work in an multi-vendor...