Product Description
by Gabriel F. Gargiulo (Author)
This book is for the programmer who needs to convert a program written in TSO-CLIST to TSO-REXX in the z/OS TSO/ISPF environment. You need some familiarity with both languages in order to do a conversion.
This book will show the correspondences, or lack of them, between CLIST language features and REXX language features. CLIST language features are shown on the left-hand page, with the corresponding REXX language feature on the facing, right-hand page.
TSO-CLIST dates back to the beginning of TSO in 1971. It truly is a legacy language. IBM continues to support it because so many of its customers have active, functioning CLIST programs in use.
CLIST language is found only in one environment, the z/OS TSO/ISPF environment. Experience programming with CLIST is not readily transferable to any other environment. The REXX language is found mostly in the z/OS TSO/ISPF environment, and in QMF, CICS, DOS/VSE, and Netview. Knowing REXX makes you more valuable to your employer.
The number of programmers who can understand CLIST language is diminishing. It is a good business decision to convert CLIST programs, where possible, to REXX programs.
I'm sure most programmers will remember the nightmare of having to fix a program that is so old that no one left alive knows what the program is expected to do. The programs illustrated in the book are available at the URL shown in the book.
Author Biography
I worked as a programmer for a major insurance company. In 1976 I aided in the introduction of TSO to the staff by testing it, creating a TSO user's guide, writing CLISTS, teaching classes in TSO, and making recommendations to the technical support personnel about TSO. I worked on TSO administration, managing user id's. I automated the administration by writing CLISTS, TSO native mode commands, utilities, JCL, Assembler language programs, and MVS utilities. At another major insurance company I was introduced to REXX on CMS, and there wrote a user guide for programmers on REXX. When TSO REXX became available in 1988, I began working with it. Several years of that led to the creation of my book "REXX in the TSO Environment." As a programming contractor, I automated the transfer of an entire data center's JCL and procedures to another data center, using REXX, IBM utilities, and TSO/ISPF panels.