LEXX

LEXX is a text editor which was possibly the first to use live parsing and colour syntax highlighting. It was written by Mike Cowlishaw of IBM in 1985. The name was chosen because he wrote it as a tool for lexicographers, during an assignment for Oxford University Press's 'New Oxford English Dictionary' (NOED; the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary). The program ran (and still, in 2018, runs) on mainframes under VM/CMS. LEXX's design was based on several other editors written by the same author (such as STET) augmented by the ability to dynamically parse text and display colour on the new colour terminals that had recently become available (PC-based, and stand-alone such as the IBM 3279). It was programmable using dynamically-loaded compiled commands (usually written in PL/I) or using interpreted commands (usually written in REXX — hence the 'XX' in 'LEXX').