From EXEC to EXEC 2 to REXX to NetRexx

Andrew Binstock’s SD Times column last week, “The Return of NetRexx,” brought back some fond memories from my past associations with NetRexx and its big-predecessors.

NetRexx’s great-grandfather was an IBM scripting language called EXEC, which was an interpreted command language that ran on the IBM System/370 mainframes under the Virtual Machine/Conversational Monitoring System operating system. My early days in data-center computing were on VM/CMS, and that meant a lot of time spent with EXEC, and its vastly more powerful successor, EXEC 2.

I smile to remember the super-elaborate things that we did with EXEC 2. One of my more interesting projects – it was a tour-de-force – was an EXEC 2 script that turned a rarely used DECwriter III terminal into an unattended batch printer. The code for the EXEC 2 remote printer is on a nine-track tape that hasn’t been touched in 25 years.

My next encounter was with NetRexx’s parent language, REXX. I never knew what the name stood for, but according to the Wikipedia it means “REstructured eXtended eXecutor.” Brilliant!

REXX was an important language within the IBM ecosystem, particular on the late and sadly lamented OS/2 operating system which IBM and Microsoft co-created in the mid-1980s, and which IBM drove into the ground. The history of computing would be a lot different if IBM and Microsoft had persevered in their collaboration on OS/2, instead of having a famous divorce which led to Microsoft creating Windows NT and IBM demonstrating total ineptitude.

That brings us to NetRexx, an interpreted language that runs inside a Java virtual machine. NetRexx first appeared in 1997, and was created by the same IBM genius that invented REXX, John Cowlishaw. While NetRexx was technologically compelling, IBM remained totally inept, and never marketed it. However, NetRexx may have a new lease on life, as IBM says it will donate it to the open source community. Read Andrew’s column, tell me what you think.