Customer Reviews

REXX with OS/2, TSO, & CMS Features Quick Reference Guide (Mainframe Technical Series)

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excellent. one shouldn't expect anything less from the GABE. The reference complete GABE's first book (1993) about REXX. not a day goes by without a flip-thru....

Gabe Gargiulo's REXX Quick Reference Guide, published by MVS Training, Inc. is a must have for anyone who writes code in REXX on any platform. The book is a well-organized reference guide that explains every REXX function, verb and reserved variable. The book covers the REXX language in alphabetical order so it is easy to find what you are looking for. For example, to learn more about the PARSE statement, simply look in the "P" pages. This is a handy format for quick reference guides because most people use them for specific help on specific coding problems. Maybe a function or very basic parameters that a programmer has never used before and he or she needs to know more about them. Or, maybe a programmer noted a feature of some function during earlier research but didn't have a need for it at the time. Now, they have a need for the untried feature and want to know how it works. Here is where a books like this is invaluable. Interspersed throughout the books are some useful informational topics. These include compatiblity issues for REXX for cross-platform code, concatenation-both within the REXX language and for the SYSEXEC/SYSPROC DD names of TSO, a full explanation of how to exploit functions, edit macros and finally, precedence of operators. These extra topics all serve as valuable aids to REXX programming that can't be pinned down to a specific verb or function. This book wouldn't be appropriate for someone who doesn't already have some familiarity with REXX-it is not a "how-to" or tutorial on the REXX language. Instead, it is the kind of book that a REXX programmer should have close by when he or she is about to "get creative" and do some power coding. Personally, I always find these types of books useful. A typical thing that happens to me is that I spot something that the author documents as a language feature that I had been coding "by hand" for years. That is, I discover a better and easier way to accomplish something. I then adopt the "new" (to me) technique permanently. I like that. It makes me a better, faster and more accurate programmer!

I bought this book today.After going thru it, I found that its not worthy of the price $33. It doesn't handle REXX+ISPF programming part.

Just a good tool for writting simple REXX programs

This book is a handy reference guide for the REXX language. I recommend the book if you're coding using REXX.

I would not recommend this book due to anyone with any hope of understanding this fickle and sometimes difficult language. There are some thing the author does not cover and some she giggles over like a schoolgirl. I don't think she has a full grasp of reality yet alone the subject.