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When [[IBM]] decided in 1988 to standardise on [[Smalltalk]] as their language of choice for future application development it became obvious that it would be beneficial if other tools from the company could offer a degree of compatibility with the object model that Smalltalk offered. This lead to amongst other things the development of the [[CORBA]] derived [[System Object Model]] and the closely related Distributed System Object Model (DSOM) but it also became obvious that it would be better if REXX, which was heavily used in IBM systems as a glue language, could operate with the object-oriented paradigm as well, this alongside a general interest in O-O languages at the time lead [[Simon C. Nash]] (IBM UK) later in 1998 to start experimenting with merging the REXX language with the object model of Smalltalk under the code name '''Oryx'''.
When [[IBM]] decided in 1988 to standardise on [[Smalltalk]] as their language of choice for future application development it became obvious that it would be beneficial if other tools from the company could offer a degree of compatibility with the object model that Smalltalk offered. This lead to amongst other things the development of the [[CORBA]] derived [[System Object Model]] and the closely related Distributed System Object Model (DSOM) but it also became obvious that it would be better if REXX, which was heavily used in IBM systems as a glue language, could operate with the object-oriented paradigm as well, this alongside a general interest in O-O languages at the time lead [[Simon C. Nash]] (IBM UK) later in 1998 to start experimenting with merging the REXX language with the object model of Smalltalk under the code name '''Oryx'''.


IBM showed the first prototype of the Object REXX language at the 1992 [[REXX Symposium]] on an OS/2 2.0 machine and by the 1993 the language had gained graphical user interface class libraries for both OS/2 [[Presentation Manager]] and OSF/Motif on [[AIX]], a development environment that includes a class browser, an interactive debugger and object inspector, and integrated support for OS/2 WPS object via SOM. In 1994 IBM announced that development the Object REXX would replace Classic REXX as the default REXX interpreter in the next release of OS/2, but that came with the promise that it would be "100% compatible with Classic REXX" and that development was now in the hands of a team run by [[Rick McGuire]]. At the same time the company announced a few extensions to the language in addition to the O-O features already included but amongst new language features were expressions in stems, parse enhancements, Countstr and Changestr functions, extended Do and date conversion.
IBM showed the first prototype of the Object REXX language at the 1992 [[REXX Symposium]] on an OS/2 2.0 machine. In 1993 the language had gained graphical user interface class libraries for both OS/2 [[Presentation Manager]] and OSF/Motif on [[AIX]], a development environment that includes a class browser, an interactive debugger and object inspector, and integrated support for OS/2 WPS object via SOM.


Object REXX was finally released in beta form in 1995 as part of the [[IBM Developer Connection]] Volume 6 and in GA form as part of the release of [[OS/2 Warp Version 4]] and shortly thereafter as a download for users of [[OS/2 Warp Version 3]] and [[OS/2 Warp Server Version 4]]. However that release proved to be something of an anticlimax, the language was not 100% backwards compatible as had been promised, breaking not only a lot of third party REXX scripts but was also incompatible even with a number of scripts supplied on the OS/2 Warp 4 CD. The visual development environment and large portions of the GUI class library IBM had shown were missing from the package after the developers of similar development environments for Classic REXX complained and threatened to withdraw all support for IBM products from the market (it turned out that a couple of other visual development environments for Classic REXX from IBM were never released for the same reason).
In 1994 IBM announced that development the Object REXX would replace Classic REXX as the default REXX interpreter in the next release of OS/2. The development was now in the hands of a team run by [[Rick McGuire]]. At the same time the company announced a few extensions to the language in addition to the O-O features already included but amongst new language features were expressions in stems, parse enhancements, Countstr and Changestr functions, extended Do and date conversion.


==Products==
==Products==
;Object REXX for OS/2
*IBM Object REXX for OS/2 PPC (1996) included with OS/2 Warp PowerPC Edition
;Object REXX for AIX
*[[IBM Object REXX for OS/2]] (1996) included with OS/2 Warp 4
;Object REXX for Windows
*[[IBM Object REXX for AIX]]
* Object REXX Interpreter Edition (1996)
*[[IBM Object REXX for Windows]]
* Object REXX Development Edition (Summer 1997)
** Object REXX Interpreter Edition (1996)
** Object REXX Development Edition (Summer 1997)
: Object REXX plus IBM Object REXX Workbench (GUI development & debugging) and sundry tools like tokenisers & linkers etc.
: Object REXX plus IBM Object REXX Workbench (GUI development & debugging) and sundry tools like tokenisers & linkers etc.
;Object REXX for SUN/Solaris
*Object REXX for SUN/Solaris
;Object REXX for Linux
*Object REXX for Linux
 
===OS/2 Version===
;OS/2 versions
* 6.00 (12 Jul 1996) - included in Warp 4
* 6.00 (21 Jul 1997)
* 6.00 (11 Nov 1997) - Warp Fixpak 6
* 6.00 (25 Mar 1998) -
* 6.00 (18 May 1999) - [ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/ad/obj-xx/objrxx30.zip IBM FTP Update]
 
;Known issues
Object REXX for OS/2 is known to have issues with ''Object Desktop'', specifically some of the WPS integration features of OD clash with the Direct WPS-support of OREXX, if you do not use the direct WPS-support you can fix this by uninstalling it using "wpsinst -". There was a similar issue with ''DeskMan/2'' but it is believed that these were fixed in the end. In either case make sure you are running the 1999 version of OREXX, it fixes a WPS integration initialisation bug that helps in both cases.
 
===License===
* Commercial software, distributed with base operating system component of OS/2 Warp Version 4 and later releases, separate update for Warp 3.
 
==Publications==
;IBM Redbooks
* [http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/pubs/pdfs/redbooks/sg244586.pdf Object REXX for OS/2; Rexx Bytes Objects Now or Taking the ″Oh, oh!″ out of OO] (Sep 1996)


==Links==
==Links==

Latest revision as of 19:54, 17 October 2019

IBM Object REXX is an object-oriented programming language suited for beginners as well as experienced OO programmers.

It was originally released in versions for OS/2 and AIX that offered integration with SOM 2.1 and had some limited graphic functionality, but IBM later made versions available for Microsoft Windows and Sun Solaris that were fully independent of SOM, note that unlike the OS/2 version the AIX and Windows versions were all paid separate commercial products. Sun Solaris (SPARC) and Linux versions were available as-is.

History

When IBM decided in 1988 to standardise on Smalltalk as their language of choice for future application development it became obvious that it would be beneficial if other tools from the company could offer a degree of compatibility with the object model that Smalltalk offered. This lead to amongst other things the development of the CORBA derived System Object Model and the closely related Distributed System Object Model (DSOM) but it also became obvious that it would be better if REXX, which was heavily used in IBM systems as a glue language, could operate with the object-oriented paradigm as well, this alongside a general interest in O-O languages at the time lead Simon C. Nash (IBM UK) later in 1998 to start experimenting with merging the REXX language with the object model of Smalltalk under the code name Oryx.

IBM showed the first prototype of the Object REXX language at the 1992 REXX Symposium on an OS/2 2.0 machine. In 1993 the language had gained graphical user interface class libraries for both OS/2 Presentation Manager and OSF/Motif on AIX, a development environment that includes a class browser, an interactive debugger and object inspector, and integrated support for OS/2 WPS object via SOM.

In 1994 IBM announced that development the Object REXX would replace Classic REXX as the default REXX interpreter in the next release of OS/2. The development was now in the hands of a team run by Rick McGuire. At the same time the company announced a few extensions to the language in addition to the O-O features already included but amongst new language features were expressions in stems, parse enhancements, Countstr and Changestr functions, extended Do and date conversion.

Products

Object REXX plus IBM Object REXX Workbench (GUI development & debugging) and sundry tools like tokenisers & linkers etc.
  • Object REXX for SUN/Solaris
  • Object REXX for Linux

Links

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