RexxLA

The Rexx Language Association (RexxLA) is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use and understanding of the Rexx programming language. RexxLA manages several open source implementations of the Rexx language, two of those are previous commercial offerings from IBM. These are professionally crafted language implementations that come with abundant documentation. For more information about RexxLA and to learn how to join, visit our About RexxLA page.

RexxLA News

24th International Rexx Language Symposium

2012-05-16: The 2013 Rexx Language Symposium will be held 05-08 May 2013 in the Raleigh-Durham area, returning to last years' location.

The Rexx Language Association (RexxLA) and the Open Object Rexx Development Team are pleased to announce the availability of Open Object Rexx (ooRexx) version 4.1.2 Septembert 1st, 2012. ooRexx 4.1.2 is the latest open source version of IBM's old Object REXX interpreter. It is released under the Common Public License (CPL) v1.0.
The number of supported platforms and operating systems is large and the source is readily available to compile it on the platform of your choice.

CRX Open Source

2012-03-22: The fastest Classic Rexx interpreter CRX (Compact Rexx, the current holder of the RexxCPS record) has been open sourced by its maker, Dr. Brian Marks. Currently, it is available via Mike Cowlishaw's homepage. CRX consists of i486 Assembly code and runs on OS'ses that vary from (pc,ms)DOS to Windows 7. Its main purpose is to verify the X3.274-1996 ISO Standard Programming Language - REXX. Later this year, RexxLA will open a project in one of the repositories to enable a collaborative effort to safeguard the future of this very fast interpreter. Here is a presentation from 1999 discussing this product.

Rexx for Android Available Soon

2012-04-27:We have it from a very good source (Pierre Richard from Jaxo company in France) that Rexx for Android ("Rexxoid") will be available very soon, bringing Rexx on Mobile to a larger audience. Watch this space!

Regina 3.7 has been released on October 16th, 2012.

Regina is an ANSI-compliant Classic Rexx interpreter that has been ported to most Unix platforms (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, etc.) and also to OS/2, eCS, DOS, Win9x/Me/NT/2k/XP, Amiga, AROS, QNX4.x, QNX6.x, BeOS, MacOS X, EPOC32, AtheOS, OpenVMS, SkyOS and OpenEdition. Rexx is a programming language that was designed to be easy to use for inexperienced programmers yet powerful enough for experienced users. It is also a language ideally suited as a macro language for other applications. Regina is currently licensed under the GPL and is maintained by RexxLA officer Mark Hessling.

2012-03-13: Pipelines enthousiasts will be happy to know that NJPipes, the Pipelines implementation for NetRexx and Java, will be open sourced by the Rexx Language Association. Ed Tomlinson, its creator, has donated his implementation, which is being readied for release. John Hartmann, the father of Pipelines, has promised to provide a foreword to the new documentation.

NetRexx blends the clean, easy-to-learn syntax of Rexx with the robustness and portability of the Java™ environment. The result is a language tuned for both scripting and application development, and designed for both interpretation and compilation – a truly general-purpose language.
NetRexx is an effective alternative to the Java language, letting you create applications and applets for the Java environment faster and more easily than by programming in Java.
Being very system-independent, NetRexx offers the advantages of portability to almost any operating system that supports a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

BSF4ooRexx Generally Available

2012-06-18: We are pleased to announce the availability of BSF4ooRexx, one of the RexxLA managed open source projects, today, June 18th, 2012. After an extensive test period the development team is proud to announce the general availability (GA) of BSF4ooRexx, version 4.10, 20120618.

BSF4ooRexx is a language binding for the easy to learn and powerful scripting language ooRexx, which allows ooRexx programmers to directly use the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed on practically every computer. The language binding camouflages Java as a dynamically typed, caseless language, making it extremely easy to exploit Java by non-Java programmers. The project is to be found at its SourceForge page.

BSF4ooRexx is a Java language binding for the scripting language ooRexx. It allows ooRexx programmers to directly use the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) libraries. It allows, for example, implementation of Java methods in ooRexx and callbacks from Java to ooRexx. It camouflages Java so that it resembles ooRexx by being dynamically typed and caseless. BSF4ooRexx comes with built-in support for programming OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.org and allows ooRexx to be used as a macro language.

BSF4ooRexx version for ooRexx 4.1.0 and later, exploiting the new ooRexx kernel (e.g. allowing implementation of Java methods in ooRexx, callbacks from Java to ooRexx).

This brings an end to a long period in which some have expressed doubts regarding the perspective of the language and the intentions of the parties involved. Now that we have this behind us, the real work can start. The language board will convene and draw up plans for the future. Because a lot of the work of readying the source code for publication has been done over the years past, there will be no long delay in having it available in a source code repository on the net. The www.netrexx.org site will be on the air shortly.

The IBM NetRexx web site will be changed to reflect this new status of NetRexx, and will cease to function later this year. The binary distribution will be available from www.netrexx.org initially and will reflect NetRexx 3.00, which is an almost unchanged release that contains the required source code modifications of the translator and has some small fragments of code adapted to be able to build on more recent Java versions. It is expected that 3.01 will be available from the code repository and will be the first official RexxLA release.

René Vincent Jansen
President, Rexx Language Association.