HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ralph@cs.arizona.edu ("Ralph Griswold")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Icon RBBS
Date: 30 Aug 92 18:21:59 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

I see the article in Newsletter 38 does not contain all the information
someone might want to use the Icon RBBS.  The settings are standard,
but I'll dig additional information out of an ealier Newsetter and
post it in a day or so.
    
Ralph E. Griswold			ralph@cs.arizona.edu
Department of Computer Science 		 uunet!arizona!ralph
The University of Arizona		602-621-6609 (voice)
Tucson, AZ 85721			602-621-9618   (fax)
From: ralph@cs.arizona.edu ("Ralph Griswold")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Icon RBBS
Date: 30 Aug 92 18:19:01 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

The information you want is a bit bulky to put in every Icon Newsletter.
There was an article covering this in Icon Newsletter 38.
    
Ralph E. Griswold			ralph@cs.arizona.edu
Department of Computer Science 		 uunet!arizona!ralph
The University of Arizona		602-621-6609 (voice)
Tucson, AZ 85721			602-621-9618   (fax)
From: stone@HILBERT.MATH.GRIN.EDU (John David Stone)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Icon question about sorting
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:56:27 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet


        The only part of the process that you can speed up, as far as I
can see, is the recovery of the original strings.  You'd do this by
keeping the original and mapped strings together during the sort:

procedure case_insensitive_sort(string_set)
local string_table, str, string_list

    string_table := table()
    every str := !string_set do
        string_table[map(str, &ucase, &lcase)] := str
    string_list := list(0)
    every put(string_list, (!sort(string_table))[2])
    return string_list
end

------  John David Stone - Lecturer in Computer Science and Philosophy  -----
--------------  Manager of the Mathematics Local-Area Network  --------------
--------------  Grinnell College - Grinnell, Iowa 50112 - USA  --------------
--------  stone@math.grin.edu - (515) 269-3181 - stone@grin1.bitnet  --------
From: janpeter@mpi.kun.nl (Jan Peter de Ruiter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: sorting
Date: 3 Sep 92 11:46:36 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

Wouldn't it be most convenient if Icon allowed the programmer to
define his/her own compare-function used in the sort() procedure?

If that were possible, the case sensitivity could be avoided by defining
a compare-function that simply ignores case, and from then on 
everything would be the same. I imagine something along the lines
of a &compare keyword that points to the (possibly user defined)
function that returns either -1, 0 or 1, depending on the outcome
of the comparison. In that way the most esoteric sorting functions
could be written, without deteriorating the programming style.

Jan. P. A. de Ruiter
janpeter@mpi.nl
From: GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET (Dave Gomberg)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Re: newbie rexx programmer asks silly questions
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:56:01 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
              4 Sep 1992 15:36:07 GMT from <hardiman@CSD4.CSD.UWM.EDU>

What, please, is the Programmer's Shop Catalog?
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: ets@wrkgrp.COM (Edward T Spire)
Subject: Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
Organization: The Workstation Group
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 17:41:21 GMT

anders@lise3.lise.unit.no (Anders Christensen) writes:
: 
: With this flame-war on REXXLIST/comp.lang.rexx, one thing has at least
: been achieved: the probability that the problem is going to be
: discussed at the coming ANSI REXX meeting has increased ... :-)

This discussion has been rather reserved compared to the real flame wars
one sees.  No personal attacks, etc.  Useful, too.
  
I'm sure this will all be discussed over more than one ANSI session.
Maybe not the next one, however, the agenda's probably already set.
  
-Ed
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com (Jerry Campbell)
Subject: Rexx and assumptions about data
Reply-To: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com
Organization: Amoco
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 15:09:14 GMT

I think its a BIG mistake for an particular interpreter implementation or
especially the ANSI committee to make any assumptions about the data a
Rexx program may need to deal with.  Consider a distributed computing 
environment where a Rexx program may need to control or communicate with
other operating systems.  What if, I had a Rexx application running
on my Amiga :), that needed to access a Vax database, manipulate the 
data somehow or another and then, say, generate a report to be printed
on an MVS (it ill never die) attached printer.  If you step back from 
this issue a bit and consider the possible uses of Rexx as an interprocess,
intersystem scripting language I think its required that we not insist
on "helping" the Rexx programmer port his programs with stuff like builtin
*automatic* tab to space conversion and such.  Leave that kind of "help"
as an option of some kind.  I like the idea of using the Options statement
(as Pat Mueller suggested) to turn helpers of this type on and off as needed.

BTW, AmigaDos makes heavy use of Rexx as an multiple process/task facilitator. 
As in, Rexx starts image processing application, processes some images,
starts a viewing tool, passes the images to the viewer, takes input from
the user which says, print this picture, start a desktop publishing program,
import the image, print the image.  All of this done in a automated, hands-off
mode for the user.  Now, expand the concept to other systems/hosts instead
of local processes....
---
Jerry Campbell   reply to: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com 
Amoco Corp. ISD  SSS/Graphics
Houston, Tx.     713/556-7036

Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 08:31:32 PDT
From:         Dave Gomberg <GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
              26 Aug 1992 08:56:20 GMT from <anders@LISE3.LISE.UNIT.NO>

The notion of using tabs to represent multiple blanks dates back to the
IBM2741.  Now if there is a truely obselete device on this planet, that
is it.  But U**X continues to try to perpetrate the notion that this is
a good idea.

Please don't be confused by the issue of disk file compression.   Certainly
nobody wants to fill a disk with long strings of blanks, and on the disk,
compression (with tabs or whatever scheme) is useful.  But to have codes
other that '20'x in running text when a blank is meant, to me is obselete,
and worse yet, confusing and stupid. There is no NEED for lots of different
blank characters.  That C recognized them shows the difference between C
and REXX.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: ets@wrkgrp.COM (Edward T Spire)
Subject: Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
Organization: The Workstation Group
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 16:20:52 GMT

eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
: Ok Scott, say I give you a unix playstation with a copy of the source code for
: LISTSERV (25-30k lines of REXX), and pay you by the hour to make it work under
: unix. How much money will I save if I give you a REXX interpreter to make the
: conversion easier?
: 
: The answer is I'll lose money, because it will take you about 1-2 months to
: realize it is much faster to rewrite everything in C than to try to reuse the
: REXX code with the interpreter.

1.  OS macros written in REXX (and other programs that are mostly OS
commands) are hard to port.  However...

2.  REXX is also used as a general purpose programming language.  Such
programs are much easier to port.  And...

3.  REXX is used as a macro language for other applications (XEDIT
and ISPF come to mind) that have themselves been "ported".  XEDIT macros
ported from CMS to Unix port very nicely indeed (since the primary
addressible environments are very similar).   Finally...

4.  Even if you did need to essentially re-implement a large OS macro
on Unix, doing it in REXX again may be your best choice.  You cannot be
as productive in C or PERL (unless you code these languages all day
long every day, and even then I doubt it...)  Hence there may well be
some rexx code that is retained.

REXX certainly adds value to new environments, and we should think
seriously about how it will best fit into those new environments.
Although we may not all agree, I believe we are all rapidly headed
towards being involved in new computing platforms.

-Ed
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 08:38:01 EDT
From:         Turgut Kalfaoglu <TURGUT@FRORS12.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...

Btw, there is now an Rexx->C converter being beta tested (on the users!)
for OS/2 2.0.. It's called RexxTacy.. From what I saw, it's a complete
library of Rexx functions, and some 'mapper' code that translates your
rexx code. I should say "it will be complete." It clearly needs more
work before large things can be ported with it.

PS: Available from ftp-os2.nmsu.edu, among other places.

-turgut
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 13:19:54 PDT
From:         Dave Gomberg <GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
              31 Aug 1992 13:13:35 GMT from <anders@LISE3.LISE.UNIT.NO>

My statement is vague, but "commonly used" is not vague?  Anders, you
are full of it.  Many, many, many lines of it.   Dave
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Sat, 29 Aug 1992 08:19:45 PDT
From:         Dave Gomberg <GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Blanks vs white space...
              29 Aug 1992 17:02:32 GMT from <eric@SEJNET.SUNET.SE>

Well, Eric, I have a little problem with your latest.  Suppose I write:

    DO I=1^TO 10

where ^ is one of the weird, emm/2*PI to the blank spaces.  Is the
parser supposed to recognize that too?  It seems to me that a system which
treats K as blank because it was written in a country where there is no
K in the national alphabet should be expected to provide an "export"
routine to turn its internal files into those the rest of the world can
use.  Many applications have this facility.  Then a rexx process is just

  export fn | rexx

Comments?
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 22:37:05 PDT
From:         Dave Gomberg <GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
              27 Aug 1992 23:37:20 EDT from <ophof@SERVER.UWINDSOR.CA>

Eric's problem generates no "can of worms" in one case, the case where
blanks are spaces, and nothing else is.  Then value is terminated by
one or more spaces followed by a colon, or the end of line.  Simple,
and right.  The so-called problem comes from a design flaw in an
underlying system that synonymizes characters that are not at all the
same because the implementers did not understand history.

If it is required that 20 characters be syonymized because the designers
of a character set did not understand the distinction between a character
set and a printer control languague, I for one don't want to buy a device
that fools around with that character set.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: ets@wrkgrp.COM (Edward T Spire)
Subject: Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
Organization: The Workstation Group
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 16:24:19 GMT

pg@sanitas.stortek.com (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
: Edward T Spire (ets@wrkgrp.COM) wrote:
:  
: : 3.  REXX is used as a macro language for other applications (XEDIT
: : and ISPF come to mind) that have themselves been "ported".  XEDIT macros
: : ported from CMS to Unix port very nicely indeed (since the primary
: : addressible environments are very similar).   ...
: 
: I wouldn't quite say "very nicely".  Here are the problems I encountered
: trying to convert some of my XEDIT macros from CMS to uni-XEDIT/uni-REXX:
: 
: extract /uniqueid doesn't work
: 
: extract /size doesn't work
: 
: extract /lscreen doesn't work
: 
: extract /update doesn't work
: 
: extract /terminal doesn't work
: 
: extract /cursor doesn't return cursor.5 ... cursor.8
: 
: extract /ring doesn't work
: 
: Search for external functions is case-sensitive
: 
: command pfile and command pquit not defined
: 
: command line is not stacked on entry to PF key macro.  This has been
: an undocumented feature of CMS XEDIT.  However, in response to my
: Reader's Comment Form ES592, IBM has agreed the feature needs to be
: documented.  As soon as the feature appears in IBM doc, I'll report
: it as a defect to TWG.

OK, "nicely", not "very nicely".  When the "cloning" process is
completed, then it **will** be "very nicely".

Of course, some of these things don't port cleanly.  Terminal, for
example.  Case considerations for external functions is another sticky
issue.

-Ed
From: mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us (Mike Meyer)
Subject: Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: Amiga Yarn 3.4, 1992/08/12 15:49:52
Keywords: 
Summary: 
Date: 28 Aug 92 22:37:35 PST
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica

In <9208260321.AA05688@SERVER.uwindsor.ca>, ophof@SERVER.UWINDSOR.CA (Scott Ophof) wrote:
> Question:  When are blanks not only the space character?
> Answer:    In any case in Unix.
>
> My point?
> I would hate to have to port to CMS any REXX program written for
> Unix (or PC); to have a program fail due to something like this
> would not be very easy to debug...

You're right. Of course, finding the failure because application A
accepts tabs for whitespace but Rexx doesn't isn't easy to debug,
either.  That's experience - ARexx doesn't treat tab as whitespace,
but it generally is on the Amiga. As a result, I universially run text
files through a detab program before letting ARexx read them.

> My suggestion?
> In the interest of increasing the chance of successful porting, to
> request the ANSI-REXX committee to define that the *only* blank/
> whitespace recognized in standard REXX is the SPACE character (ASCII
> hex-20, EBCDIC hex-40).
> 
> Your comments?  :-)

I disagree. What "blanks" are should be system/compiler-dependent.
Then people can choose the quality of implementation they desire.

	<mike
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:10:54 PDT
From:         Dave Gomberg <GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...

There may be a need to control print formatting, but the way to achieve
that is not the addition of the 127-to-an-emm space.  The way to do that
is PCL or PostScript or TeX or someother tool designed to solve the
problem.  You don't screw up the character set just to try to control
output.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com (Jerry Campbell)
Subject: Re:      Blanks, REXX, and portability...
Reply-To: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com
Organization: Amoco
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 15:55:01 GMT

In article AA05688@SERVER.uwindsor.ca,         Scott Ophof <ophof@SERVER.UWINDSOR.CA> () writes:
>Question:  When are blanks not only the space character?
>Answer:    In any case in Unix.
>
>  ...... stuff removed .....
>
>My point?
>I would hate to have to port to CMS any REXX program written for
>Unix (or PC); to have a program fail due to something like this
>would not be very easy to debug...
>
>My suggestion?
>In the interest of increasing the chance of successful porting, to
>request the ANSI-REXX committee to define that the *only* blank/
>whitespace recognized in standard REXX is the SPACE character (ASCII
>hex-20, EBCDIC hex-40).
>
>Your comments?  :-)
>
>
>Regards.
>$$/

Just an observation from someone whose done a LOT of Rexx programming 
under CMS and not a whole lot under Unix.  The commonly accepted "style"
(at least in my shop) for constructing data streams to feed to Rexx or
for interpreting system information (msgs, cmd output, what not) many
times leads to code such as this:

   Parse Var sometin 1 parm1 +4 5 parm2 +4 ....

All very byte position oriented.  The programmer expects to intepret things
in terms of "card columns".  Many programs are written with that kind of 
dependency on CMS.  Unix seems to require a different conceptualization
of data streams.   

---
Jerry Campbell   reply to: zjlc12@hou.amoco.com 
Amoco Corp. ISD  SSS/Graphics
Houston, Tx.     713/556-7036
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Re: Eric's question
Date: 29 Aug 92 23:36:31 GMT
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden

In article <ANDERS.92Aug29194248@lise3.lise.unit.no>, anders@lise3.lise.unit.no (Anders Christensen) writes:
>>			 Parse var data a b . ' A('c')' d
> 
> You use a Space character in the pattern to denote a whitespace.

If my space matches a tab, how do I do when I *have* to match a space, and only
a space? I suppose I can't. I suppose we are back to the typical unix situation
where strings that contain arbitrary characters cannot be manipulated with the
standard functions provided by the language, and where you have to implement
your own set of routines for such purposes.

> OK, then your program will continue to work on the CMS machine, since
> the assumptions it makes are correct in that environment.
> If you move to Unix machine, then you want to write the rexx script
> from scratch (that's how I understand your 'No'). Then you should use a
> dataformat more suitable for the Unix environment.

What a pathetic conclusion - "if you can't do it, it means you shouldn't do it
this way, and not that something is wrong". But again you forgot what I wrote
at the very beginning of the articles you are quoting: FORGET THE NAMES FILE!
The question is not about data formats for personal alias files, it's about
having a usable language. If "search" functions interpret blanks as "any white
space", how can I make a search on a binary key which happens to contain a $20?

  Eric
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 13:21:52 PDT
From:         Dave Gomberg <GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: PARSE wishlist/brainstorming
              31 Aug 1992 14:03:12 GMT from <zjlc12@HOU.AMOCO.COM>

On Mon, 31 Aug 1992 14:03:12 GMT Jerry Campbell said:
>In article 92082711461997@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU,         Dave Gomberg
><GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET> () writes:
>>Sorry, guys.  I really don't see a problem that doesn't have a GOOD
>>rexx solution NOW.  Not every parsable situation has a one-line parse
>>solution.  But in 2-5 lines, yes, pretty much.
>>
>>WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WE ARE TRYING TO SOLVE?
>
>The same type of problem the inception of the Parse statement solved.

PARSE was trying to pull out the words in a sentence.  Blank delimited words.
It does this admirably.  Do you have another problem to solve that you wish to
propose?   If so, what is it?

The more discussion I see on this problem, the more convinced I become that
the real problem is muddy thinking.  Now if someone has a common, easily-
solved, real-life PARSE problem, I would like to hear it.  If not, can we
move on to something else more productive, please?    Dave
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: hardiman@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Paul V Hardiman)
Subject: Re: newbie rexx programmer asks silly questions
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 15:36:07 GMT

In article <MARTINC.92Sep3183628@grover.cs.unc.edu> martinc@grover.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin) writes:
>Thanks to everyone who has replied: it's clear that my major problem is
>a buggy rexx on UNIX.  The other point people mentioned ('/' versus '\')
>was a typo I introduced by dyslexing while typing the example.
>
>Now, what about DOS rexx implementations?  personal REXX from Mansfield
>Software in CT is the only one I've seen mentioned so far....
>--
>Charles R. Martin/(Charlie)/martinc@cs.unc.edu/(ne crm@cs.duke.edu) 
>O/Dept. of Computer Science/CB #3175 UNC-CH/Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175
>H/3611 University Dr #13M/Durham, NC 27707/(919) 419 1754
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>"I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every
>one I meet,/Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew
>before?/ Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your
>nonsense?"  _Leaves of Grass_ xxiii.4.


There is a version of REXX for Windows produced by Kilowatt Software.
It also includes a DOS (non-Windows) version.  Kilowatt advertises
in the latest Programmer's Shop catalog, and their products are
available from that vendor.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 05:14:21 EDT
From:         Scott Ophof <ophof@SERVER.UWINDSOR.CA>
Subject:      Re hotdogs (was Re Blanks, REXX, and portability...)
Comments: To: REXXLIST@uga.cc.uga.edu
              Aug 31, 92 2:19 pm

Jerry Campbell said:
>
>In article 92082714064578@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU,         Paul Russell
><PRUSSELL@IUBVM.BITNET> () writes:
>>On Thu, 27 Aug 1992 06:30:35 LCL Anders Christensen said:
>>.... lots of stuff deleted ...
... me too ...  ;-)
>Ok, where are the marshmallows?!?!?  Drat, hot dogs will have to do.  Alright,
>I'm ready, flame away!   I promise, "I will never, ever, ever again say
>anything
>that might incite opsys riots", I promise, I promise, I promise... :=)

I got the marshmellows.  Who's got the matches and a stack of punch
cards?  >;-))

Regards.
$$/
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Re: do over stem
Date: 26 Aug 92 03:03:44 GMT
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden

In article <1684D13F6B.PNNTEST@pucc.Princeton.EDU>, tdtrue@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
> In article <ANDERS.92Aug25001604@lise3.lise.unit.no>
> anders@lise3.lise.unit.no (Anders Christensen) writes:
>>Unfortunately, a builtin function called tails(), which takes the name
>>of a stem as parameter, and return a list of tails, is impossible.
>>Because tails may include any character, there is no character left
>>that can be used as separator for the various tails.
>  
> Another approach to this would be to have tails() return only one
> tail at a time.  You would then need some sort of 'SET/RESET'
> parameter with tail() as well.  When no more tails are available, it
> would return null ... or can null be a tail as well?

Null can be a tail. Your tail() either needs to remember all sorts of things
internally between each call, or needs to be given the name of the last tail it
returned so that it can find the next one. The latter case opens up a nice can
of worm in case of incorrect input, dropped variable, and performance would be
worse since it has to locate the input tail every time. No good. In the former
case, tail() has to store this internal data somewhere and has to make sure
that the memory in question is released if you exit prematurely (without a
RESET call), or whatever you wanted to call it. No good. Or the data can be in
internal interpreter work areas, like the stem descriptor, in which case it
might as well be done directly by the interpreter with 'Do i over l.' or the
like. The interpreter furthermore has the ability to prevent drop or additions
to the stem while it is being examined if that is necessary.

  Eric
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx