Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 21:23:10 -0800
Reply-To: REXX Programming discussion list <REXXLIST@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
Sender: REXX Programming discussion list <REXXLIST@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From: Dann Lunsford <dann@GREYCAT.COM>
Organization: "CalWeb Internet Services Inc. Your affordable ISP."
Subject: Re: WPS classes in Object Rexx OS/2
I think you need to go back to the start of this thread.
In my original post I explained all the things I've tried.
In <63dk5i$53h@cantine.wu-wien.ac.at>, on 10/31/97
at 09:56 PM, Rony.Flatscher@wu-wien.ac.at said:
Dann:
>In <3459cbd5$1$qnaa$mr2ice@news.calweb.com>, Dann Lunsford
><dann@greycat.com> writes: -In <3457af50.0@news3.ibm.net>, on 10/29/97
>- at 09:49 PM, miesfeld@acm.org (Mark Miesfeld) said:
>-
>--Dann Lunsford (dann@greycat.com) wrote:
>-
>--: I recently started seriously diddling with Object Rexx; on the whole,
>I --: like it. However, when I attempted to use the WPS class
>interface, I ran --: into a brick wall. I could *not* get the simplest
>thing to work. --: ...
>--: I have no idea what to do next. I simply cannot believe this
>conclusion; --: I have the feeling that there would have been general
>LOUD screams --: directed at IBM if more than a few people noticed this.
>Do you have Object Desktop installed ?
>(It breaks Object Rexx' direct WPS-support. Have been trying for almost
>1 1/2 years to get infos from Stardock via the newsgroups in which Brad
>Wardell posts without a reaction. As long as OD and ORexx don't get
>along I personally am not going to buy OD, although from reports and PR
>material it looks interesting.)
I don't have OD, never saw the point in it. However, from the data I am
slowly gathering, I suspect that OD does *not* break OREXX, but rather
OREXX breaks OD. The WPS class registration in OREXX is totally bogus;
SysRegisterObjectClass actually fails, but leaves the class name you
supply in the class list. I've tried things like
call sysregisterobjectclass 'FrankZapppa','REXXWPS'
result shows something went wrong, but the class list now has an entry
FrankZappa REXXWPS.
EXAACTLY the same thing happens when you try to register WPZORXINIT and
WPZORX; You get bogus entries in the classlist. Rexxwps does no validity
checking at all.
>--There have been LOUD screams that the WPS class interface in Object
>Rexx --has serious bugs in it from the creators of DeskMan/2. There have
>also
>Well, did they contact IBM ? (Never heard them scream in this
>newsgroup.)
>--been numerous reports by users that Object Rexx, with the WPS class
>--interface activated causes, Desktop hangs and other problems when other
> --WPS aware programs, like Object Commander, are used. There have been
>--numerous reports of problems when users activate Object Rexx and use
>the --Warp 3.0 style Launchpad.
>-
>--IBM seems to have turned a deaf ear to all this.
>Again, did they send in bug-reports to IBM ?
>As far as I am concerned *all* bug-reports were looked at by the IBM
>developers. In case that a bug-report indeed was a bug-report (and not a
>misunderstanding or overlook on my part) they took care of the bugs.
>With other words, the bugs disappeared in later versions of Object Rexx,
>period.
>-Why is it I'm not surprised anymore?
>-
>-I just did some experimenting and discovered that REXXWPS will quite
>-happily add a FrankZappa class to the class list. The damn thing does
>no -checking at all. The interesting thing is that the SOM class server
>-works. Do an exehdr or exemap on REXXSOM.DLL, and you can see all the
>-<classname>NewClass entry points listed. Must be that the two .DLLs
>were -done by two different groups.
>Don't know about the entry points issue you bring up, but I know that I
>have no problems whatsoever to install and run the WPS-stuff of Object
>Rexx.
The entrypoints I mentioned are required by SOM for SOM Class definitions.
They are generated out of the IDL by the SOM compiler, and the linker DEF
file generated out of the IDL by SC exports them. Use exehdr or exemap
and look at, say, REXXSOM.DLL; you'll see *NewClass entry points all over
the place. The OREXX SOM interface works well as far as I can see with
limited experimentation. On the other hand, REXXWPS does not have any
entrypoints WPZORXINITNewClass or WPZORXNewClass. It attempts apparently
to use the SOMInitModule entry to fake this, and fails miserably. In the
Warp 4 toolkit are several utilities for deailing with classes and class
registration. These utilities all barf when you try to feed them REXXWPS
and those WPZ* classes. One of them explicitly tells you that the classes
can't be registered because those entrypoints are missing.
I think, given all this, that OD is getting a bum rap. THe REXXWPS module
is the culprit: It is simply not built correctly.
Now, the question is, what are YOU doing to get it to work? Because I've
recieved a lot of correspondence from people who can't. What does your
CONFIG.SYS look like? Have you dereg'd something? Have you registered
something? What's in your class list? What's the size, date, version
and bulidlevel of your REXXWPS.dll? What OS/2 level, and what FP are you
running? There's got to be a clue as to what's going on somewhere!
For the record, my REXXWPS.DLL is 4002 bytes long, dated 7-22-96, has no
bldlevel signature (This small size is another indication, IMHO, that
something is wrong. The DLL that implements the SOM classes (REXXSOM) is
76878 bytes in size on my system. I would think that the WPS classes
would be of comparable size). Warp 4 with FP4.
>But then, I don't use Object Desktop, because I know that it introduces
>troubles to OREXX' direct WPS-support. (And BTW, if you do not use OREXX
>direct WPS-support, i.e. deinstall it with "wpsinst -", then both, OREXX
>and Object Desktop seem to get along happily according to reports on the
>net.)
>-This is starting to get very depressing. Maybe OREXX is another IBM
>-effort to kill OS/2?
>No, calm down.
OK. Lost control there for a moment. :-)
>The contrary seems to be true: IBM did release OREXX for Warp 3 users a
>couple of weeks ago (whith other words, Warp 3 users got the official
>license = right to upgrade classic Rexx with Object Rexx, which up to
>that point just was officially available via Warp4 and the DevCons).
>This is especially important for ISV's as they now have the right to
>distribute their Object Rexx applications not only among Warp 4 users,
>but also among Warp 3 users (of which there happen to exist a *lot* of).
>---
>Also, for Object Rexx prospects I infer that it continues to have a great
>future, given the actions w.r.t. OS/2 Warp 3 and the fact of the
>Win95/NT port of this year.
>[And yes, those gossips one hears from time to time about a Linux-version
>of
> Object Rexx tend to warm up ... :) ]
>---rony
--
*************************************************************************
* Dann Lunsford * The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil *
* dann@greycat.com * is that men of good will do nothing. -- Cicero *
*************************************************************************
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