If you are unsure about whether to employ REXX's object-oriented features, here are some tips to help you decide.
Object-oriented technology reinforces sound programming practices: hide your data from code that doesn't have to use it (encapsulation and polymorphism); partition your program in small, manageable units (classification and data abstraction); reuse code wherever possible and change it in one place (inheritance and functional decomposition), and so on.
Other advantages often associated with object technology are:
Of course, with Object REXX in particular you get REXX usability in an object-oriented language. You also get access to SOM technologies and frameworks like the OS/2 Workplace Shell, IBM Multimedia Presentation Manager, the OpenDoc architecture, and objects written in other SOM-enabled languages.
If you want to import or use OS/2 SOM objects, import or extensively manipulate the OS/2 Workplace Shell (manipulations of a subset of objects can be accomplished procedurally using REXX utilities), script OpenDoc parts, or create composite applications from REXX-enabled programs, Object REXX is a good way to go. It's a state-of-the-art scripting language. And OS/2 TCP/IP now provides an OS/2 Sockets API and an OS/2 FTP API for REXX, so you can script Object REXX clients and servers, and even run them on the Internet. If you've been waiting to test the waters of object-oriented programming, there couldn't be a better time or more accommodating language.