[Info-vax] Unix and DCL shells

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 08:38:18 -0500, Arne Vajhøj wrote:

> On 1/10/2024 5:00 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:11:24 +0000, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On 9 Jan 2024 23:57:19 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>> Oh, I've examined the documentation (and books) in detail. But by
>>>> that time, I'd been using REXX for years, and it does all I need.
>>>> It's surprisingly powerful.
>>>
>>> I had a look at the Wikipedia overview
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rexx>, and I see it gushes a lot over
>>> the PARSE statement, but it doesn’t seem to have regular expressions.
>>> Is that overview out of date?
>> 
>> REXX is a sparse language. But it has lots of libraries, and there are
>> regexp libraries.
>> 
>> Personally, I think regexps are overrated! And I first started using
>> them in 1975.
> 
> There is the famous quote:
> 
> <quote>
> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use
> regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
> </quote>
> 
> It is an obscure syntax.
> 
> But it is powerful and very widely available (small differences but
> available), so my conclusion is: learn it.

Oh, I learned it. Back in the 1970s, and I've kept up to date. But they 
are still overrated.