REBOL Technologies

R3.0 Plan for April 2009

Carl Sassenrath, CTO
REBOL Technologies
3-Apr-2009 20:08 GMT

Article #0406
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First, let me say that we didn't follow the March plan that we outlined last month.

Project review

About mid-March we took a break and spent time on project management, reevaluating and reorganizing the detailed project list. What became obvious was that several lower level subsystems and functions should take priority over those I outlined in the March plan.

For example, I've been very interested in seeing the next steps happen on the GUI system, but various sub-projects are necessary in order for that to happen. We needed proper support for decoders (codecs) for image loading, and module support for proper structure and isolation of the GUI's internal functions. (For example, the system/view object isn't supposed to be the global environment of the GUI system like it was in R2. The R3 GUI must exist in its own name space.)

In addition there are subsystems like security that are rapidly growing in importance as more developers download R3 and try out scripts.

So, together these create a development path that must be pushed to completion as quickly as possible, and that's really more of a focused goal now.

During March:

  • Fixes to developer file-sharing overlapped into the first week of March, but we got it released! We uploaded source code modules for R3 mezzanines and the current R3 GUI system. It was encouraging to see developers download code, made useful changes and fixes, and submit them back into the system. All of that operating under REBOL scripts, with R3 processing it on the client side.
  • The submitted changes were integrated into new releases that were published toward the end of March. Sources within DevBase (RebDev) were accepted (tagged) to make them official, and the project is building momentum.
  • The module mechanism was released, including the new IMPORT function, proper isolation with changes to the RESOLVE function. The system object's module-path is now used for module searches, and programs loaded that contain NEEDS fields will preload their necessary modules, including version checks and SHA-1 hash validations of module contents. Finally, a modules section was added to the R3 Docs Concepts area.
  • A big milestone for us personally was running the first R3 CGI script on our main web server. This allows us to begin building backends now in R3, allowing us to build some testing time under those environments.
  • The R3 codecs (media decoders and encoders) subsystem was added and initial releases have been made with codecs for JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP. More work is still needed for optimizing and allowing special options and modes, but it's now at least something real.
  • The DECODE, ENCODE, and ENCODING? functions were added to support the interfaces into the codecs, and LOAD and SAVE were updated accordingly. You can once again LOAD a jpeg locally or over the net, and this is also important for the GUI and applications.
  • The ASSERT function was added, a very useful way to validate conditions and datatypes, and documentation for it was added.
  • Various important enhancements where made to LOAD, including loading of blocks and the /next feature, often used to translate REBOL in a stepwise fashion. Also, TRANSCODE was update to support these changes, with /next and /only refinements.
  • CONSTRUCT was improved to safely handle objects like REBOL/headers as well as to allow a raw mode via the /only refinement.
  • A better search mechanism was added to embedded HELP that gives users a better way to find related functions and features. The HELP /doc refinement was also added as a shortcut to the official online documentation pages.
  • Builds were made for R3 Core on OS X PPC and also changes were made to the default Linux builds. This change allowed us to run R3 now on all our primary servers.
  • More was done to improve the R3 documentation. Various sections were added, updated, and clarified. There's still a lot more to do. If you look at the timeline, the docs are by far the largest subproject remaining.

Goals for April

Right now, I have one primary goal for April: To get the detailed project list published, so you can review the list for yourself, make comments, and hopefully find ways to contribute toward its progress.

At the top of that list is the project that I think must happen next: security. Although certainly many of developers know how to wrap R3 in a 3rd party sandbox for testing, it's not our intention that every user should need to do that.

With more and more R3 programs, demos, and shared modules becoming available, the need to integrate security back in the core system has become even greater. This is a big step toward becoming Beta.

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