From: tkoenig@netcologne.de   
      
   LC's No-Spam Newsreading account  schrieb:   
   > On Sun, 25 Jan 2026, Thomas Koenig wrote:   
   >   
   >>> One had OS-dependent scripting at least as far as early 1980s.   
   >>>   
   >>> On HP RTE-6 VM there were "transfer files" with some two-letter control   
   >>> statements. On IBM VM/CMS one could write scripts in EXEC, then EXEC2,   
   >>> and later REXX (REXX is still kicking and alive). On VAX VMS "command   
   >>> files" where written in DCL (Digital Command Language).   
   >>   
   >> JCL is also a script language, of sorts   
   >   
   > I had some exposure to JCL too on IBM mainframes (and to the equivalent   
   > "languag" on Univac 1100 ones), but I did not consider them script   
   > languages (no interactivity, no obvious way of "passing parameters",   
   > did it have branching ?),   
      
   You can write procedures in JCL, with parameters.  You can also   
   skip steps based on the condition code of previous return codes,   
   but the logic is horribly backwards.  And you can submit new   
   jobs from JCL to an "internal reader" via SYSOUT=(A,INTRDR), so   
   looping is possible, in principle.   
      
   Fred Brooks, who should know, called it "the worst computer   
   programming language ever devised by anybody, anywhere", adding   
   that as the /360 project lead, he was responsible, but that there   
   was more than enough blame to go around.   
      
   > My exposure to JCL occurred in the UK where MSSL used the computing   
   > centre at RAL ... to solve the parametere passage issue they had an   
   > additional layer called Electric written over JCL jobs, which allowed to   
   > change some parameters at submission time.   
      
   I once wrote a JCL script which would test-compile a Fortran program   
   on an IBM 3090, then cross-submit a job to a Fujitsu vector computer   
   if the compilation succeeded, to save costly CPU time on the vector   
   computer in case of syntax errors.  I think I also included   
   some output processing back on the IBM 3090, submitting a job   
   backwards.   
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