X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 04:55:26 EDT
From:         Scott Ophof <ophof@SERVER.UWINDSOR.CA>
Subject:      Re: Blanks, REXX, and portability...
Comments: To: REXXLIST@uga.cc.uga.edu
              Sep 1, 92 4:52 pm

On Tue, 1 Sep 1992 16:52:41 GMT Eric Thomas <eric@SEJNET.SUNET.SE> said:
>In article <9208310858.AA28086@SERVER.uwindsor.ca>,         Scott Ophof
><ophof@SERVER.UWINDSOR.CA> writes:
>> Question:
>> How much breakage would occur if the double quotes retained that
>>...
>>       Parse var data a b . " A("
>> means "ASCII '20'X followed by 'A('".
>>       Parse var data a b . ' A('
>> means "one whitespace followed by 'A('".
>A lot of breakage would occur, I know people who use double quotes all the time
>...

Yes, I was already afraid of this, without even considering the
only-one-datatype basic mindset of REXX.  :-(
Maybe it's a failing on my part, but I've never seen a need for more
than one datatype, even when it leads to its own unique astonishment
factor in REXX...  (wry grin)


>>>A tab in a quoted string is a tab, not a blank, just like in C and other unix
>>>languages.                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>  ^^^^^^^^^
>> Are you *100%* *SURE* of this?
>main()
>...
>Prints 9.

Your program is a nice way to emulate the C2X() function in C.  :-)
What I meant is the difference between the meaning of single and
double quotes in (at least) the C-shell, which (as I have been
informed) do *not* have identical meanings...  Maybe I shouldn't
have taken the C-shell syntax and conventions as a language?


>> I claim that with a nice set of functions translating the relevant
>> system commands to a standardised REXX I/O, portability *is* *very*
>> definitely relevant.

>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?

Um..  If you were to pay me significantly less "under the table",
you'd have a nice tax shelter...  (hey, I'm joking here!)  :-)

>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.

Agreed re existing applications which are heavily based on the
environment they were originally developed in, without real regard
to portability.  Note that this is a *general* statement.

Portability in the future seems to depend on creating interfaces
(REXX function packages) that *will* allow the (casual) programmer
to write in a non-opsys-specific manner.  Whitespace/blank/space is
just one of the things that need to be resolved in such a way that
the chance of portability is increased as much as possible.
And I don't think I need to add anything to Ed's 4 points why the
point of portability *is* important.

As to the whitespace/blank/space issue (and the likes), are there
any points which haven't been mentioned, but (may) need to be
considered in the light of *portability*?  Like other character
(classes)?


Regards.
$$/
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