Tso Clist to Tso Rexx Conversion Handbook

This book is for the programmer who needs to convert a program written in TSO-CLIST to TSO-REXX in the z/OS TSO/ISPF environment. You need some familiarity with both languages in order to do a conversion.
This book will show the correspondences, or lack of them, between CLIST language features and REXX language features. CLIST language features are shown on the left-hand page, with the corresponding REXX language feature on the facing, right-hand page.
TSO-CLIST dates back to the beginning of TSO in 1971. It truly is a legacy language. IBM continues to support it because so many of its customers have active, functioning CLIST programs in use.
CLIST language is found only in one environment, the z/OS TSO/ISPF environment. Experience programming with CLIST is not readily transferable to any other environment. The REXX language is found mostly in the z/OS TSO/ISPF environment, and in QMF, CICS, DOS/VSE, and Netview. Knowing REXX makes you more valuable to your employer.
The number of programmers who can understand CLIST language is diminishing. It is a good business decision to convert CLIST programs, where possible, to REXX programs.
I’m sure most programmers will remember the nightmare of having to fix a program that is so old that no one left alive knows what the program is expected to do.

I worked as a programmer for a major insurance company. In 1976 I aided in the introduction of TSO to the staff by testing it, creating a TSO user's guide, writing CLISTS, teaching classes in TSO, and making recommendations to the technical support personnel about TSO. I worked on TSO administration, managing user id's. I automated the administration by writing CLISTS, TSO native mode commands, utilities, JCL, Assembler language programs, and MVS utilities. At another major insurance company I was introduced to REXX on CMS, and there wrote a user guide for programmers on REXX. When TSO REXX became available in 1988, I began working with it. Several years of that led to the creation of my book "REXX in the TSO Environment." As a programming contractor, I automated the transfer of an entire data center's JCL and procedures to another data center, using REXX, IBM utilities, and TSO/ISPF panels.