REXX was a big deal when I worked on mainframe compliers at IBM. It was the system scripting language (think bash or DOS scripts) as well as the editor command language (like emacs) -- and it was a scriptable programming language for apps (like JavaScript). The best part is that all of those parts could interact. So your REXX app could talk to the command line and execute code there, or to the editor -- and vice versa. Pretty slick.

I wrote some great stuff in REXX both for work and for fun. Mike's stated goal with the language was to make programming as easy as possible for the programmer, compiler be damned! In fact, it was quite difficult to create a REXX compiler and that didn't come until much later.

Where REXX fell apart for me is that it didn't keep up with browsers and the internet, which is where the bulk of development work shifted -- at least my development work! REXX was also strictly imperative/procedural and didn't include the functional concepts that were also invented by John Backus, a contemporary of ours there at the time. Today, functional is my religion and I can't imagine going back. I've become a big fan of TS. I wonder what Mike thinks of it?