User:Zeddicus
| My Favorite Languages | |
| Language | Proficiency |
| REXX | Expert |
| COBOL | Expert |
| ooRexx | Newbie |
| SQL | Expert |
| Pascal | Rusty |
| RPL | Moderate |
| Batch File | Good |
| BASIC | Rusty |
| ALGOL | Rusty |
| Fortran | Rusty |
Hi, my name is Paul van den Eertwegh. I'm a retired senior software engineer. The last years of my career I worked on very large financial, payroll and HR systems. Using a pseudo language for business rules, code generators and large relational databases, millions of lines of code were generated, compiled, linked and run in a client-server environment. These applications were data-driven designed: about everything you can imagine was configured in databases.
Now, I just want to have fun. So in selecting a 'hobby language' my demands were as follows.
No hassle anymore with compilers and linkers -> it must be an interpreted language.
Dead easy syntax -> no '{}[]@$' stuff or mandatory indentations -> no Python and no C-lookalikes.
No data or procedure declarations -> many languages discarded.
No data typing '%# int long double' -> just code and go.
No dozens of dialects -> All BASICs discarded.
Arbitrary precision and magnitude without using an (external) library.
Recursion supported.
Good debugging and tracing facilities -> no need for a IDE.
OO optional.
Able to solve the majority of RosettaCode tasks.
So it became REXX! I had already some experience with the language (IBM, 1980s and 1990s) and kept using it for scripting afterwards. For now I stick to Classic REXX (thus no OO). The language is as minimal as you can get: only one datatype (string), no stuff like vectors, arrays, lists, complex numbers, functional programming, lambda's, dictionaries... This means you have to program everything yourself, and that's just the fun!
The two major interpreters following the standard (yes, REXX has a standard!) are Regina (Classic) and ooRexx (Classic and OO). I want my programs able to run under both interpreters (and probable under many other ones, but that's not tested).
REXX is an underestimated language. The easy syntax, small number of keywords and lack of layout demands, make it an easy-to-read language, close to pseudo-code. Even if you don't know anything of it, you can read and follow a REXX program. On RosettaCode it's already shown that REXX may be used for complex programming tasks (Walter Pachl, Gerard Schildberger). I will add my own contributions.