Comments on: Definition of Simple
REBOL Technologies

Comments on: Definition of Simple

Carl Sassenrath, CTO
REBOL Technologies
28-Mar-2011 9:45 GMT

Article #0509
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For more than a decade I've loosely used the word simple... but, what is simple? I've avoided defining the word. Why? Because I thought the definition itself might be overly complex.

Well, I know now. This experiment called REBOL has taught me quite a lot, and more recently in some of the work I've been doing, I've had the chance to contrast my ideas (yet again) to the quite different world of modern computing (pick Linux, Windows, XML). But, it goes beyond that, doesn't it? Couldn't I just as well say modern government, modern management, modern medicine, modern investing, or modern education?

Simple is:

  1. Clear abstraction: smart, well-drawn layers of "knowledge focus" that allow hiding of details.
  2. Clean expression: meaningful, concise but not cryptic, representation and communication of concepts.

If you're a computer scientist, engineer, or programmer, or even if your inclined in that general direction, then you already know the first requirement because it's stressed heavily these days. You hide the complexities of code in layers.

For example, if in REBOL I write:

image: load %photo.jpg

This loads a JPEG image into memory and defines the word image to represent it. Now JPEG itself is a complex multi-layered image compression process. But we don't need to care about that. All we need to know is load. That's the power of abstraction.

Unfortunately, the second requirement of simple is not stressed at all and therein lies the rub. In fact, I could claim that cleanliness of expression is completely ignored in most modern anything, whether that be a core OS subsystem or bill of law placed before congress.

Let me make my point concrete with an example. In REBOL one can write:

button "Click Here" green [browse the-website]

Within a GUI dialect of REBOL (e.g. VID) this line defines a button to be shown in a window and specifies its color, text, and what happens when it's clicked.

Now, compare that expression with what you might write in C++, Java, or most other "modern" languages. Really... if you know those languages, you immediately recognize my point here. And, please don't tell me that that problem is solved by XML, DHTLM, XHTML, XSL, XSD, XSLT, blah blah blah. It isn't, and if you listen to that little voice deep inside, you know that SGML-isms aren't the answer to most problems. Sure, you wish they were; but sorry, they aren't.

In recent months I've had to dive deeply into very large piles of "modern code"... not only specialized programs (like ffmpeg and gstreamer) but major libraries of huge GNU code-bases that provide core functionality (Linux, pick any lib.) And, I'm not a newbie here. My history is well documented.

Yet, when I browse these massive code-bases what I clearly see is a complete naivety of the engineers and/or programmers who wrote it. I'm not talking about their understanding of the knowledge domain, I'm talking about how they've mostly ignored tapping into the realm of expression as part of their solution.

Some designers recognize deep down that something is wrong, and to help solve their problems, they often invent yet another language as a layer within their system. Modern Linux is completely littered with such languages, and it's a huge mess that spans everything from how you configure and build the kernel down to how you write little script jobs.

The problem here is that there's no unity of language design, and in fact since most domain-smart programmers don't know much about language construction, you get something really quite ugly and nasty. Sure, people will force themselves to learn it, but only because they want the final solution... the circuit design, chip layout, kernel build, highway structure, nuclear reactor simulation, ...

But something important is lost in that approach. Simplicity is sacrificed.

Many designers strive for simplicity, but they don't truly understand the definition of the concept. They often point to an API that is well designed, but in actual usage it is by no means simple. When I look over such programs, all I see are the main expressions trying to break free of the code itself!

In my opinion this problem can be solved. And yes, you know that as the designer of REBOL I offer its main principles as a good first draft of such a solution.

For many engineers and programmers it is just a matter of waking up and understanding that they need to take a more unified view of the entire problem space, not just focus on solving a specific problem and perhaps providing good abstraction but horrible expression.

Ok, so there you are. Simplicity defined. You no longer have any excuse. The world needs simplicity... and frankly in many more domains than just computing.

I wasn't sure that I could ever write this. But now, with the experience of the last six months, it has become clear to me.

236 Comments

Comments:

-pekr-
28-Mar-2011 5:08:18
Out of nowhere, from the deep cosmic space, new blog article appears, bringing us deep message towards the simplicty :-) Will the humankind understand? I don't think so, though some might be trying (JavaFX, Qt's QML).

But Carl - if life would be "simple" in general, would you be spending last 6 months out of the REBOL land? There surely is some reason, why you do so. And there surely is some reason, why not all ppl can understand your message.

The best way though, is to show the world, how simple yet powerfull design, should look like in practice - take a breath, refresh some energy, feel the power and - finish R3. Then let the rest learn by example ....

Robert
28-Mar-2011 5:34:53
From a user POV simplicity is the goal. By user I mean: System user, Car user, Country user, Train user, ... you name it.

From a provider / supplier / ... simplicity is evil. Only complicated solutions make it possible to charge high rates for simple, trivial things. Thousands of people make a living by NOT using simplicity.

Even I understand your point, simplicity will never become a mainstream concept. Never ever.

The nice things about this? Those that are enlightened can take advantage out of this: Create your solution in a fraction of time, make better offers and by this kick a.. all the complicators out there.

MaxV
28-Mar-2011 6:07:07
I totally agree.
Al
28-Mar-2011 6:07:33
Hey Carl, it seems that Rebol has now a competitor: http://www.red-lang.org/ I presume I'll prefer the open-source BSDish license type or RedLang. So long...
Henrik
28-Mar-2011 6:35:37
Al, you may want to wait until Red at least has loops. :-)
-pekr-
28-Mar-2011 6:48:17
Al, Red is not a competition. It is being designed by our good friend Doc. And it might turn out being complementary, because it is not going to have all REBOL facilities, as we know them. It is going to be a bit different. So - Red and R3 can share the ideas ... but still provide us with the simplicity :-)
Luis.
28-Mar-2011 7:42:08
You're not the only one. Coming from a Forth, Color Forth and MISC chip background, I can safely say there are many out there looking for the same (albeit with a different destination) route through the current 'state of things'.

Even the 'visual/graphical' programming environments springing up are offering a similar premise.

Cheers,

Luis.

Steven White
28-Mar-2011 9:16:34
This reminds me of IBM 360 JCL and this quote from Edgsger Dijkstra:

Many companies that have made themselves dependent on IBM-equipment (and in doing so have sold their soul to the devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of their data processing systems.

I am going to repeat to myself, until I have it memorized, "clear abstraction, clean expression."

Ashley
28-Mar-2011 15:43:26
From a consumer POV isn't this what Apple does? The whole "less is more" design thing.
limhk
28-Mar-2011 20:06:45
Simplicity is one factor in the Beauty equation. The other is Power:

Machine Beauty = Power + Simplicity

See David Gelernter, Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of Technology.

In the book and in the article cited below, Gelernter writes,

"Beauty is important in engineering terms because software is so complicated. Complexity makes programs hard to build and potentially hard to use; beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity."

See also David Gelernter, "Truth, Beauty, and the Virtual Machine" ( http://discovermagazine.com/1997/sep/truthbeautyandth1217 )

Nick
29-Mar-2011 0:37:28
Carl, REBOL is an amazing example of beautifully designed simplicity. It is unique, brilliantly conceived, and executed. Unfortunately, developers have ultimately moved away from REBOL because they need to delve into complex problems, and they "force themselves to learn [other languages], but only because they want the final solution... the circuit design, chip layout, kernel build, highway structure, nuclear reactor simulation, ...". REBOL's closed source limitations ensure that developers will continue to choose other, uglier and less graceful solutions, by necessity - just to get the complex jobs done.

You appear to have a real desire to see change occur in the world around you, and you have accomplished more than most people ever dream of, toward that end. REBOL is a tool that could have significant impact if it could just become popular. Have you ever reconsidered releasing the source of REBOL, to enable it to realize some of it's great potential?

Zig
29-Mar-2011 4:25:52
Just making REBOL open source is not a simple solution.

How might an open source REBOL actually create wider acceptance? What might be the limitations of closed source? Some examples perhaps.

Can an open source language generate royalties to the chief designer? This might be rewarding (for all).

Open source may provide long term continuity. Or would open source see the language become as mixed as Linux has?

Without carefully constructed guidance exerting tight control over development, open source could quickly destroy the elegance of REBOL because of the current of confabulation, the currency of the times.

Kaj
29-Mar-2011 6:58:12
Conversely, closedness is one aspect of the complexity problem. If an essential part of a system is closed, it doesn't matter how simple its implementation is when it has a bug or other flaw: it will be impossible for you to fix, or impossible to fix in the required time frame.

This may seem like a technical problem, but even more important is that most technicians rightfully avoid such components like the plague, so the component won't even be used for what it could be used for. To see what can happen in an open source project, look at how Red is developing.

Steven White
29-Mar-2011 8:04:31
As I recall, one of the original design goals was to have one programming language that would run on every computer. I have the version for AIX and use it every day. Closed source, and just one source, was the way to ensure that would happen, if I am interpreting history correctly.

Of course, now, customer demand seems to have reduced the number of REBOL variants. The AIX version can't be obtained any more.

Would the goal (if it still is one) of having one language on all computers, be easier to reach with closed source (one person making sure everything works consistently) or open source (many people making sure it works everywhere). That is a rhetorical question. I have no idea what the answer is.

Maxim Olivier-Adlhoch
29-Mar-2011 13:53:43
If R3 where open source, Red would be a fork of REBOL, not its own project.

Some parts of Red would surely go back into REBOL. If REBOL where open sourced, it would risk forking, but it would also risk having ~10 active high-end developers working on it (if only to fix bugs and finalize its currently unfinished parts), instead of 1. Even with forks, everyone would try to be as compatible to the main REBOL trunk as possible.

This is not the case with completely different projects like boron and the current Red.

Maxim Olivier-Adlhoch
29-Mar-2011 14:02:26
I've been building commercial apps which have to work into the real world, plugging into other systems for a decade.

Its always been a nightmare, because we can't fix REBOL and extend it to evolve into new targets or just to squash bugs.

there are many R2/View bugs which I'd have fixed 5 years ago if it was open source.

I understand that not all of us will go and hack the core... but there are actually many of us who will.

Even with R3, I integrated OpenGL into the open source part of REBOL, but hit a snag when I realized there are limitations in the event handlers. now I can't do ANYTHING to fix that since the event mechanisms go through the core.

Henrik
29-Mar-2011 15:10:56
By the way, C++ is getting updated for a new ISO standard. Took 8 years to get there.

A bit of reading (only 1320 pages) for dinner here:

http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2011/n3242.pdf

or... for the next 150 dinners.

Zig
29-Mar-2011 21:02:45
Size matters.

Why else would anyone choose to program in something other than REBOL, C# or Java for example? Is it because they are promoted by large corporations like Microsoft or Sun? Probably there is a perception of stability, support and continuity associated with large companies.

The philosophy of keeping things as simple as possible might have acted against REBOL because REBOL may look small compared to the languages of huge organizations.

A REBOL Foundation might be one way to increase REBOL's impact to prospective programmers, and indeed a way to provide long term continuity of the language.

Making REBOL seem big might seem to be contrary to the basic REBOL credo - but, the impression of being big and successful breeds success in our time, in the age of marketing.

Is it possible to request specific core changes, a fee for service for custom cores?

David Cope
30-Mar-2011 0:22:07
(at)zig - Choosing what programming language to use is not always in the hands of the professional engineer/programmer. I've been lucky that in the past I could use REBOL in my work.

I hear what Carl is saying here. I would urge anyone to read the work of Charles Moore, inventor of Forth as well as the book "Thinking Forth" which is available as a free download.

If we want REBOL to impact more in the professional world then RT needs to step up big time in marketing, visibility and development pace.

REBOL as an island, however simple and elegant it is, will simply fail if it cannot compete in todays complex world. It's ok to say things like XML etc does not work - show the world why it does not work and why REBOL can solve the problem. For example, I have to work with SOAP clients (pain), but I cannot control the web services I use. I can't say "look, strip out those SOAP services and put in REBOL services instead".

Whilst we may not like the complexity, we have to interface with it. That pollutes our own idealised world based on simplicity and elegance.

Steven White
30-Mar-2011 7:21:56
One only has to look at Burroughs and Control Data to see that superior technology does not win over superior marketing.

I still think that the free (as in beer) versions of Core and View should be pre-installed on new computers. There is plenty of useless stuff on new computers, why not something useful. This would be a job for the REBOL Evangelist.

It would not be the case that all regular home users would jump into programming. The presence of REBOL would raise awareness of its existence. Or would ubiquity make it seem like a toy?

Edoc
30-Mar-2011 8:41:58
REBOL has taught me that the enemy of simplicity is not complexity; it is time.
onetom
30-Mar-2011 10:27:46
Carl,

Please just release at least 1 latest source of Rebol/View 2. Just to see what happens.

Also let us know what can we do to make this happen. It must have some kind of price...

onetom
30-Mar-2011 10:32:41
"Comrades" !

Should we start some fundraising on kickstarter.com to show how important is it for us to Free Willy^H^H^H^H Rebol?

(when I said price previously, I didn't really think about money, but actually I realized it can be a good indicator of our desperation)

Terry
30-Mar-2011 16:12:02
Kickstarter is interesting. Or maybe just contribute through the suggested REBOL Foundation. It would provide a means of those of us on a budget to support the project. I get a lot out of the free version of REBOL and I hope that REBOL will be around longer than I will.

The REBOL Foundation, should it occur, could manage the funds. Spending a lot on advertising, going head to head with Microsoft's or Sun's advertising budget might not be the way to go though. More towards encouraging participation and involvement, - and some to the developers!

Henrik
31-Mar-2011 1:36:26
Any funding should be directed solely towards Carl to allow him to focus on R3. Much of the external development of R3 is already funded (but of course, more could be used, which would speed up development even more, but Carl is pulling the most important load here).

It is much more important to finish R3.0, than to open R2.x.

Marketing is a waste of time for at least another year.

John Niclasen
31-Mar-2011 3:23:27
David Cope wrote:

For example, I have to work with SOAP clients (pain), but I cannot control the web services I use. I can't say "look, strip out those SOAP services and put in REBOL services instead".

It's worth it trying to make them change to something simpler. I was in same situation as you once and made the service provider support the original version of SOAP called XML-RPC. Specification for XML-RPC is 5 pages compared to the hundreds of pages for SOAP. On the client side, I built a REBOL solution to talk with their services using XML-RPC. It was easy to implent for them and me, and it works.

XML-RPC: http://www.xmlrpc.com/

K.I.S.S.

David Cope
31-Mar-2011 7:42:47
(at) John Niclasen

Glad to hear you were able to effect change. I may try that approach - it's worth a try. Otherwise I'll look into a SOAP client for REBOL.

Henrik wrote:

"Marketing is a waste of time for at least another year."

Surely not. Marketing should be built into everything RT & the community does. We are doing it now on this blog.

Nicolas V. (nve)
31-Mar-2011 14:31:24
(at)Henrik

You're totally wrong. Marketing is the most important thing to promote a anykind of product. I've tried to convince some people to have a look at REBOL. First they've take a look at rebol.com and they've tried to understand What is REBOL ? Simple question but not so easy to understand for a newbie to REBOL. We need a claim for REBOL, We need a testimonial part on the site, We need a New site marketing orientes !

Nicolas V (nve)
31-Mar-2011 14:44:04
If you look at Apple success : Marketing ! Of course they have good products, but Steve Jobs is the king to promote his products.

REBOL is good product. IOS was a killer app before Google Apps. But no marketing around it and the product didn't reached the audience.

El Guapo
31-Mar-2011 14:57:31
Carl,

*Loved* the post on simplicity, please post more on this topic.

--EG

Henrik
1-Apr-2011 4:12:01
Nicholas,

I'm focusing on REBOL 3 here, so: The reason it's not so good an idea to promote REBOL 3 just yet is that it can strictly still be considered vaporware. I measure this by what the response would be for a very critical audience, like Slashdot commenters, and it would surely be largely negative. You can't still take it out of your pocket to solve a real-world problem, other than a few specific ones.

There are too many things still needing to be completed, such as GUI, console, mediatypes, extensions, hostkit and some subsystems still requiring a revamp and over 400 bugs and problems in Curecode.

At this time, REBOL 3 would make a bad impression among casual programmers, which is quite dangerous, since we can consider that many casual REBOL programmers came to REBOL 2, due to a "wow" experience first impression. I did. It's an impression that lasts and makes people remember it, even if they leave REBOL for a while. They will occasionally ask about its status.

The "wow" experience is not easily possible with REBOL 3 yet with quite a large number of parts still under construction.

And who would you market to? Current REBOL 3 users are mostly developers, who are very busy building the platform. What are needed are experts, who are already deeply knowledged on REBOL and are capable of making intelligent design decisions. And then also people who are porting to various operating systems and they are already here.

I've also asked different OS experts if they wanted to help out with porting, but as long as there was no core interest in the language, they couldn't care about it, and market to those people? They don't care, they are C programmers. These are even people, who are aware of Carl's expertise.

All we can really say is that REBOL is still alive and well and people are welcome to join in and learn the language, if you don't mind the scaffolding of R3 or the limitations of R2 and the best way to spark interest, is by taking a friend and showing him R2 and solve a real-world problem for him in it. Do it with one person at a time. Not ads, slogans or posts on big websites or half-empty blogs, because so many other marketers do this and then, don't deliver.

Also, Apple are successful, because they market complete products that you can go buy today, not vaporware. That's why people trust Apple, because they deliver finished products.

What is needed now, are highly focused efforts on particular technical areas to move REBOL 3 toward the "wow" experience, namely a finished and highly polished GUI, a proper console and effortless and strong platform support. This is a big job. Not really until then can we begin a real marketing effort toward casual developers.

Because there would be a true "wow" effect in a light weight runtime platform with a really nice GUI, that runs on all mainstream OSes without differences, and runs circles around .Net and Java. That's what needs to be marketed.

All this "marketing" sounds very similar to Hostile Fork's effort a few months ago, by shouting about REBOL left and right, designing logos, sites, slogans and not really helping much with productive code. He frustratingly left as the result was near zero.

People get tired of hearing about REBOL 3, if it's not done yet.

Kaj
1-Apr-2011 9:15:08
See you in another five years, then - when the IT landscape and the world in general will have changed dramatically once more.

The entire problem with REBOL is postponing the release of R3 "to be complete and otherwise perfect". This is nonsense in the third millennium. No one expects software to be finished anymore, and no one expects a programming language to have a built-in cross-platform GUI. R3 in its current state is fine as a server language, a very important place for language innovation these days.

Carl Read
1-Apr-2011 19:45:36
(at) Kaj: R2 was fine as a server language too, but hosts didn't make it available. I expect it'll be the same with R3.

And I now expect a programming language to have a cross-platform GUI! For better or worse, REBOL ain't REBOL without View/VID.

That said, I think REBOL's missed the boat with regards to its browser plugin. Canvas is going to rule that space from now on. So given that, the thought should now be how REBOL can best exploit Canvas. (If it can at all.)

Henrik
2-Apr-2011 4:23:06
Carl Read,

REBOL has missed so many boats, that I don't think it's important anymore to be on a particular boat that becomes obsolete in 3-5 years. There will be many more boats.

What's important is that the core of REBOL can have longevity and helps advocate simplicity, which are principles that never get old.

Simplicity is a point of competition in itself. It will leave your competitor scratching his head over, why you can work so fast.

As Carl probably feels, there won't be many languages like REBOL in the future, because most people still don't get simplicity and the value of clean expression, even after over a decade since R2 was released.

I still meet people, who refuse to believe that R2 can do what it does. It goes *completely* over their head, what clean expression means.

Kaj,

Yes, R3 works fine as a server language now and it's wonderful to see it in Syllable. But when I think of "marketing", I'm thinking of the casual programmer, who needs a language to dabble with, and R3 is currently simply not ready for this kind of marketing. People will yell *vaporware*.

Also, do you get most response from people, who are curious about Syllable or people, who are curious about REBOL?

Kaj
2-Apr-2011 5:35:35
Hardly anybody is curious anymore about either Syllable or REBOL, because their integration hasn't been forthcoming for half a decade.

"Simplicity is a point of competition in itself. It will leave your competitor scratching his head over, why you can work so fast."

Ah, but the reality is that we are scratching our heads why the competition is half a decade ahead, isn't it? All those people who don't believe REBOL's capabilities can't believe it exactly because we have nothing to show. And if nothing changes, it will stay that way. It's the Amiga curse all over again.

Henrik
2-Apr-2011 6:49:48
Ah, but the reality is that we are scratching our heads why the competition is half a decade ahead, isn't it? All those people who don't believe REBOL's capabilities can't believe it exactly because we have nothing to show. And if nothing changes, it will stay that way. It's the Amiga curse all over again.

There is plenty around, but perhaps not to show, because much of it is proprietary, under NDA or plain secret. Believe me, some people really are baffled. :-)

In my estimate, REBOL is at least 10 years ahead on simplicity alone. To simplify systems to a similar degree, you must build them from scratch and this will take many years to do, if you need to re-invent REBOL first.

This number will grow larger, because there is no indication that software is becoming simpler anytime soon, which only strengthens the conditions for REBOL to compete on the point of simplicity.

Kaj
2-Apr-2011 7:50:22
Don't you see how huge the gap is between all the promises that "REBOL will wipe the floor with the competition" and the reality that you're telling us to wait at least another year before there's even anything to market? And the problem is, you told us the exact same thing before, and that was three years ago.
Browser-integration?
2-Apr-2011 9:37:32
If r3 is ready as server, would it work as plugin, simulating local cgi? could be plugged in opera unite too, as kind of altme.

Also, is there a build for NaCl?

R2 as hostkit?
2-Apr-2011 9:41:01
Would it be possigble to host r3 in r2? r3-blit -> r2-bridge, r2/view-blit?
Kaj
2-Apr-2011 10:53:59
There is no browser plug-in port of R3 yet, including NaCl.

It's not possible to run R2 and R3 in the same process, but you could call separate programs in one from the other, or you can communicate between them with the ZeroMessageQueue bindings:

http://rebol.esperconsultancy.nl

being on time
2-Apr-2011 14:32:05
I normally don't like to get involved in these open debate about Rebol. However this time I will make an exception. I have to agree with Kaj and Edoc. I have been playing with Rebol for about one and a half year, and I think I have a good sense of the state of affairs in the rebol community through frequent visits to rebol sites and from my own personal experience.

The way things are going, Rebol will become the language that could have been. A lot of promises were made, but it could not deliver on its promises. It's like the race horse which gets stuck every time in the starting stall at every racing event, and its owners saying that it will win big next time...

Let's be honest about it, Rebol is most likely going to die due to "simplification paralysis"

Did people not also claim that R2 was the simplest, and best designed language, how come we have to reinvent the wheel for R3? Does making a simple language not include having reusable or extendable features ?

c++ is taking 8 years to get an ISO standard, if rebol was to get an iso standard, it would take another 18 years to get out.

Just making claims that "REBOL will wipe the floor with the competition" (I am quoting) is just words and maybe day dreaming with eyes wide open. How come it didn't even reach a decent, sizable use in the programmer's community world wide after more than a decade in existence ?

Husain Bolt, didn't stay home, saying I am the best 100m sprinter in the world, he went out around the world to prove it in actual and real top level competition on 100 m racing tracks worldwide. He didn't stay at home until he became perfect, he is perfecting himself while proving himself to the world at the same time.

Can rebol do the same and prove itself in actual production use in top level business settings ? the answer is unfortunately "NO".

People cannot live with empty promises for ever, at some point , there is no credibility left.

just hoping that RED will be the language that will show what Rebol could have been.

Carl Read
2-Apr-2011 18:11:15
Henrik said: "REBOL has missed so many boats, that I don't think it's important anymore to be on a particular boat that becomes obsolete in 3-5 years. There will be many more boats."

Canvas isn't a boat that'll become obsolete. What View is to REBOL, Canvas is to HTML5. See some of the demos here... Maybe search for REBOL in the Wikimedia Knowledge Map.

But it won't be simple to create apps in Canvas using JavaScript. A VID-like dialect though could make it so.

The catch-22 with REBOL is it's seriously limited due to not being popular. And that lake of popularity means that a business based around it will have trouble growing due to no REBOL programmers readily available if they'll be needed for that growth. And you'll have trouble selling the business for the same reason.

How to make REBOL a simple choice for businesses to say yes to is the real problem that hasn't been solved yet. Being able to make Canvas apps simply might be one way to get Web programmers interested, and hopefully a critical mass of them.

-pekr-
2-Apr-2011 23:33:32
I have to agree with Kaj, although I am not going to be so negative. You might ask why, because for the whole decade, I was pretty much vocal about everything REBOL related. The answer is - I probably don't care anymore.

We have tried namely everything to work with RT, and every single aproach failed, the last one being SCRUM methodology. I have got the impression, that Carl maybe prefers to kill REBOL entirely, instead of open-sourcing it. It seems he has some other contract to make a living, and it surely is OK, but R3 stays untouched for nearly half a year.

The worst thing is, there is still no plan (for what we know) of how to escape that trap. Some ppl will defend RT, and claim that having extensions, we can use R3 already for everything. This is just a clever publicity distraction game, hiding the fact, that R3, without a leadership, can become dead-on-arrival.

So - in the end, I think that R3 is going to be replaced by RED. It might not be REBOL as we know it, but there's at least something happening around it, and it's communication and hope, which push ppl forward - two things, completly missing on RT's part for quite some time.

Henrik
3-Apr-2011 1:27:44
Kaj,

Don't you see how huge the gap is between all the promises that "REBOL will wipe the floor with the competition" and the reality that you're telling us to wait at least another year before there's even anything to market? And the problem is, you told us the exact same thing before, and that was three years ago.

Because it's a big job to get to R3.0. A really big job. But I acknowledge that most of this work is not visible to those who do not frequent the AltME REBOL 3 world and also the place, where much of the work is done.

Carl Read,

I don't worry much about REBOL not being popular, because it doesn't seem to prevent me or anyone else from using REBOL. Having used it for close to 10 years now, I don't really see any big change in popularity, perhaps only a slightly increased one, due to interest in completing R3.

Also again: Once Carl goes absent, the talk starts. Every single time. And it subsides, once a new release is made. Every single time. :-)

Carl Read
3-Apr-2011 2:03:57
Henrik,

If REBOL had become popular and thus profitable for RT, things would've been vastly different. R3 could've been developed while all the loose ends related to R2 were tidied up. Nothing succeeds like success.

"Also again: Once Carl goes absent, the talk starts. Every single time. And it subsides, once a new release is made. Every single time. :-)"

We will see. I doubt I'll touch R3 until its version of View/VID is at least beta.

Shadwolf
3-Apr-2011 8:41
"meaningful, concise but not cryptic, "

If you speak enough english yes if you don't then no.

But main problem of rebol isn't the simplicity it's the lack of serriousness you drive this business Carl... How can you be 6 month out of R3 without even feeling sorry...

Since november 2010 we are in april 2011 R3 isn't progressing and we are actually in the complete dark. Why is rebol released officially in Stable version with incrementing stuffs.

Look I know you for some years now Carl and I'll not be surprise by the end of the year 2011 you comme with" Dear rebol community, REBOL 3 is a pain to maintain and release so I will rewrite it and do REBOL4"

... Ridiculous... and that's exactly what make Software companies around the world laugh out loud when they hear REBOL

shadwolf
3-Apr-2011 9:03:58
Carl decided to make his Rebol the way it is... Guys serriously I said during years and years that Rebol was too big of a thing to be handle by a lone runner. this is a bad circle. You can't drive rebol project to more than a set of alpha/beta project so people says the ideas are interresting but they lack the polishing touch that makes them THE thing. So your audience is reduced to the minimum set of guys that really cares and those aren't anough to make a living out of them. And if you had on this that you sell a life time licence then once you covered the licencing of all your audience then you are done business will not generate anymore profit since you don't attract new people to get new incomes of monney! Then you announce the death of a product and you lack to officialise and finish the replacement product and in the end lot of side brillant ideas around the former product are abandonned. the imediate more visible change for even a monkey is the console rebol2 console was brillante sharp, fantastic, it was this close to be perfect you would had added the support of colors and R2 consol's would have been the best thing on earth. Rebol 3's console is disgusting and the word is carefully choosed Now that you killed all hopes you comme to us and says hey this business isn't working then for undeterminated time I will drop it and do something else... What effect do you expect this will have on rebol? Appart that people will say that you are a lunatic...

YOU KILLED THE INCOMES!! YOU SET SDK/COMMAND PRICING WAY TOO HIGH FOR WHAT THEY ARE!! RELBOL 3 BUSINESS DOESN'T EXISTS. YOU SEND THE MESSAGE THAT R2 IS DEAD R3 ABOUT TO BE BORN BUT YOU STILL FOCUS YOUR BUSINESS ON R2 ???!!! WOW!

rebol needs a deep redefinition a serrious 6 month plans with release and it needs a business model that bring to RT, script authors, monney!! Cause you carl aim the business of professional companies and cause carl you me and the whole world need money to live and we want to do our money out of rebol. But all that the companies cares about is using tools that millions of other will use too to make them progress fast and gain money.

HAVE A PRICE SIMPLE PLAN / AIM WITH CLEAR STAGE TO REACH FOR EACH STEPS. IF A PART IS TOO CHEAP THINKED AND LACKS FINITION THEN USE YOUR COMMUNITY FEED BACKS TO POLISH THAT PART THE FASTER POSSIBLE. SELL YOUR INCREASE !!

EXAMPLE: you propose a new module lets say a redefinition of parse. You list how you want to change parse how much time it will takes you and how much monney you expect out of it. then you open discutions with community they say look this is cool this part isn't cool we have problem already doing this that and those so it would be better to think about redoing those topic. You reevaluate the project according to the submission and you open donation for that part. That way Carl Each time you write a line of code for rebol your work is paid and ofcourse as result the donators will expect top quality production not half made ideas.

shadwolf
3-Apr-2011 9:15:05
another example of unpolished stuff that drives me creazy... in Rebol 2 and Rebol 3 VID/GUI we can't set applications icons in the title bar or make background transparent this is less than 50 lines of C code to implement those 2 features that give the polished touch !!!

Actually R2/VID just feel like the amiga 64 interface... and none of the intents to make it something better (rebgui etc...) were supported.

Ralph
4-Apr-2011 15:07:35
Hey Carl,

have you had too much of the Niklaus Wirth Swiss German wine (;-) ?

Luis.
6-Apr-2011 1:50:51
I think maybe Mr Sassenrath is avoiding the simple answer...

Cheers,

Luis.

shadwolf
6-Apr-2011 8:30:34
Carl how do you attract people on a half made black box full of bugs? 6 years carl!!! During 6 years the community here tryed it's best to get R3 done but in the end whatever we can say you decide so face it your own decisions drived rebol in the state it is...

You should make rebol for me, or didec or gabriele or pekr or to please robert Münch. You should do this to be sold to sofware companies this is your goal. I prefere having job proposition around rebol comming from Software companies and not having this rebol community than the actual state.

I'm not a whiner I'm just stating facts and I would be a whiner if I could change things the way rebol is handled and it's source code. Since it's not the case the only thing allowed to me is to tell my honest feeling on the matter.

Karl Rassensach
6-Apr-2011 11:48:51
Part 1: Thoughts on Carl's post: "Definition of Simple."

There is much chatter above me and little to do with the original post: "Definition of Simple."

What Carl seems to be expressing is the belief and desire for 'clean design' and not 'simple design.' What Carl means is clean (pure), terse (clean-cut, burnished, neat) and pure (unmixed).

In short, what Carl expressed in so many words is thus:

Most programming code sucks because most programmers lack knowing and thus understanding the design of the programming language in which they are writing code. This leads to the problem of "no unity of language design" as said by Carl.

What Carl means, most likely, is that to solve tough problems, rather than working with the language they have -- if only they were masters of that language by virtue of knowing how the designers designed it -- programmers invent other languages for specific obstacles. These other languages add layers within their product ("system"). And thus, their products become unclean, mixed, sullied, vague.

As always, because we use words, key to knowing something demands that first we discover the origin of words.

The word simple enters into English from the Old French in the early 13th century meaning "humble, ignorant." In turn, the Old French received the word from the Latin 'simplus' meaning "single," a variant of simplex.

Simplex enters into English in the 1590s meaning "characterized by a single part" from the Latin "single, simple."

The word simplicity enters into English from the Old French 'simplicite' in the late 14th century in turn from the Latin 'simplicitatem' meaning the "state of being simple."

Though the word 'simple' became overloaded with the meaning "the opposite of complicated" during the 1550s, overloading words reflects a lack of mind skill to coin a new word or to better express oneself with the words available -- that is the right words.

Overloading words confuses many and eradicates all useful meaning. In short, overloaded words become useless.

Simple is not the right word. Since the one, true meaning of the word simple in English is 'ignorant,' rightly, it should get said 'designed for simple,' meaning designed for someone ignorant.

An example of such design expressed is a TV, which has an on-off button, a channel up button and a channel down button. Someone designed TV for the simple (the ignorant).

Having a clean design can gird something designed for the simple.

Karl Rassensach
6-Apr-2011 12:06
Part 2: Thoughts on the Commentary to Carl's post: "Definition of Simple."

The above debate seems to reflect the same old complaints about REBOL:

"I can't do X with REBOL because the code isn't open source."

"REBOL is a smart product, but no one has written free libraries to work with MP3s, MPEGs, GUIs. Thus, I can't do with REBOL what I can do with Python, Ruby, Perl."

In short, nearly all complain about the OOTBE -- the out of the box experience.

It seems that nearly all do not know why REBOL exists. Here's why:

The makers of REBOL (Carl) want to establish a standard, English-like way for everyone who uses computers to exchange data.

Sell 10'000 shares of AAPL at $351.99 per share

Reschedule exam for 11-Mar-2011 at 10:30

The above looks much like English making it easy to compose if you are sending it and easy to understand if you are receiving it. You understand the above. REBOL could understand and act on the above if you teach it how to read such.

That means your stockbroker's REBOL could understand the above expression and act on it. So too could your doctor's REBOL.

Since REBOL runs on nearly every device — laptop, smart phone, TV set top box, desktop PC, kiosk, digital signage — such messages could be sent whenever and wherever needed.

Karl Rassensach
6-Apr-2011 12:22:53
Part 3: Thoughts on REBOL, Carl and Carl's post: "Definition of Simple."

If you've read this far, you should see that Carl made REBOL to be the messaging language.

It seems that Carl and those of his inner sanctum have lost sight of this:

REBOL is the premier language for Internet age messaging: man-to-man, man-to-machine, machine-to-man, machine-to-machine.

Of course, today, messaging gets dominated various services and their apps:

  • man-to-man: Twitter, GOOGLE Talk, Yahoo! IM, Skype, MSN Messenger, Facebook IM; Cell Phone SMS texting; GCal, iCal; Gmail, Yahoo! Mail
  • man-to-machine: REST, AJAX
  • machine-to-man: RSS, GNTP (GROWL)
  • machine-to-machine: XML, GNTP

People say: "Tweet me," "Skype me," "IM me."

They don't say "man-to-man message me with the best programming language slash virtual machine to do so -- REBOL."

Here's the future (already here) coming on fast:

  • HTML 5 and the Cloud [think: GOOGLE Chrome OS and the GOOGLE Web Store]
  • Single-purposed WiFi devices [think: Roku, iPod Touch, iPad, Kindle, printers, media servers]

Let's look at the iPod Touch and iPad.

Apple's people didn't say "We want to design the premier devices that talk TCP/IP and render hi-def graphics using Open GL all above an open source kernel."

Most likely, Apple's people said: "We want to design the best entertainment devices so people can watch movies on demand, watch YouTube, play video games and read digital magazines and books as if they were the real things."

What is key in the above? People want to get entertained. The source of the entertainment is content accessible through the Internet. Apple makes stuff to let people do that and hence get what they want.

Carl and his gang have focused on the technicals (pure, clean code) -- an internal purpose of Carl -- but have lost focus on why REBOL exists -- the external purpose.

Carl and his gang need to focus first on the EXTERNAL PURPOSE -- people!. Thus, here's what needs to be done with REBOL's OOTBE:

  • drop REBOL on your computer and your friend does on his, the two of you can talk (message) instantly and with a GUI
  • drop REBOL on your computer, type Twitter and REBOL talks OAuth to get you hooked up in Twitter, instantly, and with a GUI
  • have your customers drop REBOL on their computers and they can do stuff, instantly, and with a GUI, because their REBOL talks to your REBOL, which you've coded to do stuff

Of course, nothing need change fundamentally about REBOL to accomplish such. For some, all they would do is use REBOL as a chat client. For others, they'd add features to customize their chat client.

What products have been competitors to REBOL? Can you say?

Would you say other scripting languages, e.g., Perl, Python, Ruby, C#, Java? Would you say services like Twitter and SMS? Would you say RIAs like Curl, Adobe Air, AJAX in the browser, HTML 5 and the cloud?

To manifest his "messaging for everyone" concept, Carl seems to have lifted from these and extended them to the Internet (TCP/IP protocol stack):

  • Charles Moore and his Forth -- an easy-to-use, man-to-machine language where the computer user defines words and writes programs from his dictionary of personally defined words.
  • Logo, the BBN language for kids to play with words and sentences.

EXTERNAL PURPOSE Carl, do you remember? REBOL Means Messaging for Everyone (or at least it is supposed to mean so).

Focus on the external purpose -- design for simple -- and make it happen through your internal purpose -- design with cleanliness.

But do it fast, Carl. Everything is passing by you!

Karl Rassensach
6-Apr-2011 12:56:53
Part 4: Thoughts on REBOL, Carl and Carl's post: "Definition of Simple."

Where does REBOL fit today? The key platforms today are these: Android phones, iPhones, DOM-controlled HTML 5 browsers; and to a lesser extent, these: XBox 360, Wii, PSP3, DS.

Focusing on the majors:

  • Android apps programmers must write their apps in Java
  • iOS apps programmers must write their apps in Objective-C
  • DOM-controlled HTML 5 apps programmers must write their apps in Javascript

REBOL can't get on the phone platforms. So what can Carl and company do about HTML 5 and the DOM?

It should be clear to any forward thinker that GOOGLE Chrome with its apps extensions and HTML 5 kills off Adobe Air and every other standalone RIA. Even the advantage of Flash, HTML and Javascript doesn't save Adobe Air.

Look at the design of Android.

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. The Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.

  • Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
  • Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
  • Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine
  • Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0
  • SQLite for structured data storage
  • Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
  • GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
  • Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi
  • Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer
  • Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE

A similar design should have been considered for REBOL: components, integrated browser, optimized graphics, media support, SQLite.

Tethered apps are over. That means the desktop. The future is here: the cloud.

Karl Rassensach
6-Apr-2011 13:01:16
Part 5: Thoughts on REBOL, Carl and Carl's post: "Definition of Simple."

When Carl reboots REBOL (R3), Carl should dump the name REBOL. It's tainted with product failure and quirkiness.

The new product must have a name that reflects its external purpose: REBOL is messaging.

How about Gabby?

Kaj
6-Apr-2011 13:27:07
Good points. I have always wondered why the messaging language doesn't have messaging built in. REBOL could have had great commercial success in the past half decade with REBOL/Services, even if it would only run on Core on servers. But it was never properly finished and released, isn't available for R3 and its future has been undermined for several years by a new design for R3 that is unspecified. Now, years later, the same great ideas are implemented cross-language by ZeroMQ, but REBOL/Services or the new design would still be ahead in some key areas. Finishing the GUI is too much work, but a commercially viable product could be created quickly by releasing the messaging design for R3 and backporting it to R2, so that the two can finally communicate.
Karl Rassensath
6-Apr-2011 18:12:06
Part 5: ADDENDUM for Thoughts on REBOL, Carl and Carl's post: "Definition of Simple."

I've thought about what I've written and want to address a few bits.

When I meant to include the iPad and iPod Touch along the iPhone.

Perhaps, also, I should have mentioned the Io Language.

In spite of the ugly syntax and inheritance design, the guy who put it together did a far better job than Carl and his gang has with REBOL when it comes to the Out-of-the-Box experience.

Here's what Io offers out-of-the-box:

  • audio
    • LibSndFile
    • Ogg
    • PortAudio
    • SampleRateConverter
    • SoundTouch
    • TagLib

  • video
    • AVCodec
    • Theora
    • Vorbis

  • graphics
    • OpenGL
    • Box
    • Cairo
    • Font
    • GLFW
    • Image

  • databases
    • SQLite3
    • SQLite
    • MySQL
    • Postgres
    • DBI
    • Memcached
    • Obsidian
    • QDBM
    • SkipDB
    • SqlDatabase
    • TagDB
    • TokyoCabinet

  • Internet
    • Twitter
    • Socket
    • SecureSocket
    • HttpClient
    • CGI
    • DistributedObjects
    • GoogleSearch
    • Beanstalk
    • Loudmouth
    • Volcano
    • NetworkAdapter
    • TokyoCabinet

  • language connectivity
    • ObjcBridge
    • Python

  • compression
    • LZO
    • Zlib

And Io gives you these goodies:

  • BSD license
  • reflective
  • small vm (~10K semicolons)
  • multi-state (multiple VMs in same process)
  • actor-based concurrency, coroutines
  • reflective
  • 64-bit
  • embeddable
  • exceptions
  • OSX, Linux, BSD, Windows
  • 'UI definition' files formatted in JSON

I could go on and on, but you get the point of it. REBOL started long before Io, but Steve Dekorte managed to surpass REBOL in all the things Carl and his team should have been doing for years now.

Still, we hold hope for REBOL because REBOL is fun.

Edoc
6-Apr-2011 18:53:34
I also like REBOL dialects, but the feature seems mainly designed to allow a higher-level abstraction within REBOL code, not for intercommunication between people, machines etc. In other words, dialects must be written in REBOL datatypes, which, while more expressive than other programming languages, are still very restrictive compared to domain specific languages found in real-world use. There is also no template, design patterns or tools for creating dialects-- it's all roll-your-own (and the parse documentation is thin). This means that anyone interested in pursuing dialects in REBOL needs to become very proficient in REBOL and its sub-language Parse, which is no small undertaking.

RT needs to flip this on its head if dialects are to become a marketable feature-- dialects should be so well supported that they flourish and are more popular than the underlying REBOL interpreter.

With regard to Io, I remember when it first came out. It was developed in just a couple of years!

onetom
7-Apr-2011 3:36:08
Carl,

Im thinking about buying a Macbook Air. I would rather give the money for the purpose of either

1, open sourcing R2/3 or

2, you and other experts finishing R3 GUI or

2b, at least make the fonts work on Mac and Linux properly (even in any inefficient way 1st)

Please talk to us!

Norman
7-Apr-2011 14:11:49
Well said Carl!

An example... An electrician comes to the house and fixes the problem within 3 minutes. The person who called the guy had to pay $100 for this fix and askes the electrician.."Why do I have to pay this much for a fix of 3 minutes?".. Where the electrician says "Knowledge isnt for free.."

What is ment here is that 'Simplicity' might look easy but its far from it, thats why the majority of people dont understand how to define it, its a constant process of development and research..

I wish they would force assembly back in schools, then students will finaly learn again how to handle data and learn to think what its like to work on bare metal.

Keep going this road Carl ;-)

Paul
7-Apr-2011 19:19:45
I think if you have problems with REBOL, just contribute more to it or roll your own.

I'm currently building "Pneuma". It is not interpreted but compiled and is very fast but also very limited at this time.

John Niclasen
9-Apr-2011 1:57:37
Just found an interesting quote related to definition of Simple:

Perhaps a thing is simple if you can describe it fully in several different ways without immediately knowing that you are describing the same thing.

- Richard Feynman

Karl Rassensath
9-Apr-2011 9:17:11
(at)John

Feynman makes the concept of simple far too complicated.

Simple is what I've said it is, already. Simple means ignorant, plain.

Many conflate simple with 'easy'. Others conflate simple with 'whole'.

Academic blowhards like Feynman know little about anything except their respective fields and even then, often, they espouse much silliness that lessers in their fields are too afraid to call them on it.

Karl Rassensath
9-Apr-2011 10:58:42
Proper reading comprehension should lead anyone at once to what Carl has tried to express.

In so many words, Carl said that because most programmers don't get the programming languages with which they work; to solve others problems that come up during programming for the initial problem, such programmers invent or use other programming languages for these additional problems.

By using two, three or more languages to create software that does one thing, such programmers make their designs unclean, impure, sullied.

That's what Carl meant, although using the word 'simple' to label the opposite meaning of what he expressed ends up as a poor choice of a word.

Rightly, Carl means 'unnecessarily complicated' because of such software mixed with more than one language defines complication. Thus, mixed software design is unclean, impure, sullied.

Carl should have said 'pure' or 'clean' rather than "simple."

Even these would have been better expressions: 'right design', 'better design', 'better software', 'better products'.

That better software design can arise by masterfully using one language so that even the simple can read the code and understand it, all the better.

Porting to Emscripten?
10-Apr-2011 4:22:12
Compiles c to javascript, 10* slower than gcc -O3 . If the closed lib would be compiled to this and nacl, people could start writing portable hostkits with gui. Keeping coding simple again (but not the buildchain^^).
Forgot Link
10-Apr-2011 4:23:05
http://syntensity.blogspot.com/2011/04/emscripten-10.html
Book Siberia
10-Apr-2011 10:24:54
Earlier in this thread, someone mentioned that what View is to Rebol, Canvas is to HTML. And that got me to thinking about the frustrating fact that Rebol isn't available in the browser, whereas Javascript is.

But interestingly, I read somewhere that Firefox has recently been extended to permit scripts in languages other than JavaScript to appear in and to evaluate them.

Scripts written in Rebol that could be placed directly within the tag would be incredibly useful as it would allow access to the DOM.

I think that this would require constructing an XPI module which links FireFox scripting to the Rebol interpreter. Anybody here knows how to do this?

On top of that, it should then be straightforward to build an xpcom *interface* written directly in Rebol.

A similar suggestion has been made (for GSoC- Google Summer of Code) to provide this kind of functionality in Tcl. Wouldn't it be easier/SIMPLER to do in Rebol, given its dialecting capabilities?

I'm quite fascinated with the idea that it just might become possible to utilize Rebol View directly within the HTML canvas, once the XPI module was built. It should be a lot easier to build that module given that Firefox has opened this kind of capability up.

It certainly would allow us to showcase Rebol in the browser.

Book Siberia
10-Apr-2011 10:32:41
pardon:

the latter part of that 2nd paragraph should have read

"permit scripts in languages other than JavaScript to appear inside the SCRIPT tag and be evaluated."

Luis.
11-Apr-2011 7:56:42
(at)Karl: 'Simple is what I've said it is, already. Simple means ignorant, plain.'

'Simple' is simply (...) what people understand it to be. Inasmuch as you see others 'version' of simple as wrong, to them yours is too, no matter where you shout it from.

Educating as to the Etymology of a word does not change its meaning, only what someone else means when they use it.

If we keep on referring back to the original meaning of a word we will have no space for metaphor, the creation of new meanings or the evolution of language.

Cheers,

Luis.

Nick
11-Apr-2011 8:31:18
(at)Siberia: The old REBOL browser plugin provides access to the DOM. http://www.rebol.net/plugin/tests/plugin-guide.html#section-5
Karl Rassensath
11-Apr-2011 9:16:55
(at)Luis

Many live their lives by false beliefs. Defending those who do provides much entertainment. That mere words triggered you into action has provided me much amusement, Luis. Thanks.

Language does not evolve. That's a false beliefs indoctrinated idiots parrot.

Humans make the same sounds today as they did 100,000 years ago and no more. Since all language is mere words and all words mere sounds, no evolution has arisen.

However, overtime persons misuse words because of their ignorance over meaning. Such misuse ends up changing meaning.

Again, simple means, plain, ignorant. To deny such is to be well, simple, Luis.

Karl Rassensath
11-Apr-2011 9:26:33
(at)Luis

Many live their lives by false beliefs. Defending those who do provides much entertainment. That mere words triggered you into action has provided me much amusement, Luis. Thanks.

Language does not evolve. That's a false belief indoctrinated idiots parrot.

Humans make the same sounds today as they did 100,000 years ago and no more. Since all language is mere words and all words mere sounds, no evolution has arisen.

However, overtime persons misuse words because of their ignorance over meaning. Such misuse ends up changing meaning.

Again, simple means, plain, ignorant. To deny such is to be well, simple, Luis.

Saying the word 'simple' when one means 'easy' or 'clean' reveals weak English skills, especially related to the bedrock of English -- Wessex-based Old English and Middle English.

Carl Read
11-Apr-2011 13:08:14
"What a clean machine!"

Thank's Karl. You've cleared up all ambiguities for us.

Oh, except one. What's Carl (or Karl) mean?

Luis.
12-Apr-2011 1:33:57
(at)Karl: A handspan measure was a fathom, later used in sailing where knots were placed at equal points and counted as the rope was drawn up. A handspan then was what we now equate with 6ft (a fathom). The hands outstretched, to encompass, to grasp, to understand, to fathom.

If you can grasp simple, it is odd that you can't fathom linguistic evolution.

Your entreatment of simple has made it anything but.

Cheers,

Luis.

Karl Rassensath
12-Apr-2011 13:59:10
(at) Luis. Whatever douchebag.

Be advised that you began with an ad hominem attack in your original post to me and that your ad hominem attack was off-topic.

Words don't evolve. Languages don't evolve. Such things aren't alive.

People who suffer from mediocre IQs easily fall for such persuasion and indoctrination.

Claiming "language evolves" doesn't elevate the field linguistics to a scientific level the way biology is.

Luis.
13-Apr-2011 3:14:26
(at)Karl: Looks like you've adequately shown everyone where your level is.

Cheers,

Luis.

Ladislav
13-Apr-2011 13:57:55
This is the little ambiguity Carl Read wanted to have cleared:

Karl_Rassensath: make object! [
	type: 'person
	name: "Would-be Anonymous"
	character: "misusing the good name of the author"
	discussion-profile: [
		"high priests of academia"
		"indoctrinated idiots parrot"
		"people who suffer from mediocre IQs"
		"How are your reading comprehension skills?"
		"live their lives by false beliefs"
		"The Insularity"
		"Save your socialist thinking for your household."
		"Community of SHEEP."
		"If you want to be in a community, go join a commune."
		"persons lacking basic knowing of their speaking language"
		"untangle the mess that's inside your head"
		"As I teach my son"
		"lazy mind is what makes zealous bigots"
		"Your acts reveal you to be who you are."
		"I won't connect the dots for you"
		"Sure would enjoy meeting your parents to see what kinds of pieces of work they must be."
	]
]

Does that tell you enough?

-pekr-
13-Apr-2011 22:37:09
Ladislav, I might have your code refinement :-)

Karl_Rassensath: make Karl_Rassensath [name: "Pierre Johnson"]
Carl Read
14-Apr-2011 0:52:45
browse http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Carl

Here be imposters getting above their station!

Karl Rassensath
14-Apr-2011 16:45:18
(at)Ladislav.

What it tells the world is that you suffer from an effeminate mind, meddling in the affairs of others.

Basically, you're an asshole and you've shown the world as much.

What's more. Mere words triggered you into action. Look at you go!

Kaj
16-Apr-2011 8:39:18
This is why simplicity can only be found in the embryonic phases of anything, and why cave projects stay in caves. When human minds run idle, they desperately start looking for things to do.
Albert E
16-Apr-2011 13:50:15
I see what your up against when you strive for the direct, the simple and the elegant against the stream of the confounding.
KBM
19-Apr-2011 23:03:37
(at)Karl

I often travel to Norway, where they have a lot of trolls.... Want me to bring one?

If you are genuinely interested in commenting on the subject do so. You seem smart enough. Otherwise consider yourself prey....

And we do have hunters here.

Sol Campbell
20-Apr-2011 20:00:39
1) funny that someone who is such a coward that he doesn't even have the courage to show his true name , but instead chose to hide behind some fake name, treating other people as effeminate ... In the mind of everyone reading these current blogs, he is worse than effeminate... Aha!! projecting one's own deficiencies onto someone else

2) He seems to talk smart, but he thinks stupid ... aren't we on a public blog ? Does public not tell him something ? or did he not even realize that he was on a public blog ?

3) for someone who is pretending to be an "expert" in linguistic, it is so pathetic, that he has to resort to swearing .... for lack of better words ? What a surprise? is his vocabulary that narrrow ?

Xavier Debecq
14-May-2011 1:01:59
Those days i got time to reflect about the same subject applied to IT and other subject. Most of the time, for not to say all of the time, the most brilliant concept is not always winning due to economy. The last time i have been free to use rebol for saving a problem, i was hired with a temporary job. I used rebol and i gain 15 days on the problem i solved and i solved for a long time (i mean until legislation change ... ). I got no more money for that. From my point of view if i was purely rational it is suicidal. From the point of view of the company it is a good bargain but no one inside would give it a try to rebol because the guys who are working on it are affraid for their job. The problem i fixed that time was related to pollution, from the point of view of the environnement its a pity no one use rebol. But those three different points of view differs from the time they impact life of people. I was reflecting in terms of weeks, the company should reflect in terms of months or years and the environnement acts in terms of decade or geological eras. Thats why i dont search to program anymore for the moment. When people will be problems that will force them to change, they will research for SIMPLE solutions.
Paul
4-Jun-2011 7:54:41
REBOL Community - I tried to tell you. Focus your efforts on RED now. It is going to be what we all wanted all along.
Edoc
6-Jun-2011 11:42:06
Interesting programming article, the kind that used to be more popular in the 90's:

The Lisp Curse, by Rudolf Winestock

"This essay is yet another attempt to reconcile the power of the Lisp programming language with the inability of the Lisp community to reproduce their achievements."
Dave
7-Jun-2011 13:06:02
Or even more apt : Project Xanadu anyone ?

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html

dd
20-Jun-2011 13:55:51
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them." -- Alfred Lord Whitehead

I can instinctively see the advantages to learn Rebol, yet I seem to be stuck in the "thinking" part, instead of the "performing" part.

Lots of knowledge fragments, whiz-bangs, one-liners but I'm unable to put them together for even a simple project. Like:

parsing a log file ( a peculiarly "computer hostile" log file) aggregating the individual lines to transaction ids operating as a webserver to provide drill down capability from a web server consolidating the data into an sqlite3 db ( for operations by non-Rebol pgms)

Can anyone suggest a source project I could study to start building my own?

Dick Dunbar (dd)
20-Jun-2011 14:56:22
Wow. I've now had a chance to read the whole topic.

Easy to see that tempers are flaring (didn't enjoy that part).

Steven said early on he wanted an AIX version. Me too. Couldn't get it. Why?

The multiplicity of platforms is what attracted to me to Rebol in the first place. How difficult is it to build on multiple platforms?

For 6+ years, I was an evangelist for the APL language at IBM. It had a similar premise that the language was extremely easy ( well, not if you had to UNLEARN another language), and that real domain experts wanted to write software for themselves, without having to translate the domain knowledge to someone else. In short, APL was a tool for thought. It helped focus the mind on something other than a firing squad.

Our little team grew APL popularity all over the globe, and then I noticed a strange trend. The APL community was not growing; the attendees at the language conferences were the same people, year after year.

Conclusion: If the community is not growing, it is dying.

The low-hanging fruit had been plucked. The easy applications and attraction to very bright domain specialists had been achieved.

And, the world did not stand still while we accomplished this feat.

New operating systems, new databases, new languages ... all clamoring for mind-share. The specialty language APL would have required us to re-implement all of this software using "the APL Way".

It was never going to happen. I left the group to work on new stuff, but without forgetting my roots.

How does this relate to Rebol?

  • forget trying to sell everyone on this language. Too many distractions.
  • concentrate on what you do best, without trying to do everything
  • finish the product every 3 months. Roll out the features
  • publish schedules you can keep, or people get edgy and leave
  • produce the core on every platform you can. Get help.
  • when you introduce incompatible changes, provide the tools to convert
  • provide interfaces to other environments. Be a language, not an OS.
  • Rebol isn't a matter of life or death; it's more important than that.

The world is moving faster than ever. While I was able to keep up with many technologies before, I cannot keep current on ANY today.

I want to see Rebol succeed. The platform I would deploy on first (AIX) is no longer available, and that's a shame. The product shapes the implementation decisions I'm forced to make.

David den Haring
21-Jun-2011 6:09:53
Dick,

I don't know what your project requirements are (e.g. Core or View?), but have you considered using an older version of REBOL. I see that REBOL/Core 2.3.0.17 is available for AIX -- http://www.rebol.com/release-archive.html.

That is, of course, a really old version that may not meet your needs. Some people also have a mental block about using an older version of something.

R3 should be a straightforward port to AIX. It's already running on more esoteric platforms like Syllable and the Amiga.

David den Haring
21-Jun-2011 6:12:49
As a follow-up to the previous comment, REBOL/View 1.2.1.17 is the latest version for AIX.

See http://www.rebol.com/release-archive.html.

Steven White
21-Jun-2011 7:16:08
Slightly off-topic, or maybe not...

I too am more in the "thinking" part instead of the "performing" part. I spent 30 years coding in COBOL, and I keep thinking of the quote from Edsger Dijkstra:

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."

The guy also had a choice one about APL:

"APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums."

I have noticed a number of times that I have spent some hours trying to figure out how to do something in REBOL, and have succeeded, but then looked back at the very few lines of code it took and marveled at how few they were but how long it had taken me to find them.

John DD
23-Jun-2011 9:48:49
I read all the comments here. Seems to me that those who still visit these pages really want REBOL to succeed. The consensus seems to be that help is needed. If you won't go Open Source, consider Open Source by Invitation.

That is... one Project Manager (benevolent dictator, you) outlining specifically how the code is written, how it's commented, decisions on the tools to use, tabs vs spaces (if that's what it takes to get R3 out the door). It also helps tremendously to have a team to bounce ideas back and forth with.

Get the NDA and non-competes ready. Invite document writers, bloggers (for this site to inform, update), webmasters, etc... Redefine your role before REBOL completely disappears from the picture or you completely burn out from what has become a hobbyist project.

Some good suggestions here include REBOL as a plugin, on the cloud, as part of the new slew of (fully-featured and sophisticated) handheld OSes. It's a shame that a project like RED is gearing up when that energy and enthusiasm could be a part of this very project with you riding shotgun (but licensing disagreements might have made this inevitable anyway).

If anything... focusing on a single OS is the way to go, I think. Once all the kinks have been worked out (let's say by version 3.1x), then the ports can begin...

Hope this note wasn't too abrasive. I still check in every few months mostly because I agree 100% about the elegance of simplicity - something that was clear regarding REBOL from the beginning.

In any case, best of luck!

Andrew
27-Jun-2011 14:12:26
Pretty Quiet.

A simple solution:
- reinvent REBOL's R2 as EBOL or just R2
- cut the SDK price to $20 a "whole world" affordable price
interest and sales would rocket
- continue R&D of R3

Maybe R2 didn't overthrow the computer world, but it is still viable and is of great value.

Carl Read
2-Jul-2011 18:22:05
Andrew said: 'cut the SDK price to $20 a "whole world" affordable price - interest and sales would rocket'.

It's an interesting thought. I've bought software when a similar approach has been applied, but due to being only slightly interested in the product I've then not used it. Or at least not yet. (Some software requires a lot of time to learn regardless of its cost.)

Such a price drop should be short-term though, lasting no more than a week or two. As if not, people will just wait until they actually need to buy it due to there being no urgency to get it straight away.

And that approach would be a useful way to judge the real interest in REBOL. If sales were good, as in enough to fund real development of R2's loose ends (as well as R3) for a year or three, then yah, green for go. But if not - well, the public has spoken with regards to REBOL as a commercial product.

RaviD
13-Jul-2011 15:38:43
AMEN! CARL; you are CORRECT! SIMPLICITY; as the chinese adages go, sometimes the tip of a horse's hair is larger than the universe ...

I had read about REBOL almost a year ago thinking why do we even need an OS when BIOS is the governing protocol. Today; I am setting out to learn REBOL, letting go of Squeak/Smalltalk etc. Your blog post on simplicity helped me in that decision. Thanks for giving us REBOL.

And now here is an expression in French and hopefully it fits in with your thoughts! SIMPLICITY; c'est L'Mystique, je ne sais quoi!

RaviD
13-Jul-2011 15:59:27
Quoted text from Karl R; "Academic blowhards like Feynman know little about anything except their respective fields and even then, often, they espouse much silliness that lessers in their fields are too afraid to call them on it".

I disagree about Richard Feynman; whose lecture inspired nanotechnology which was later demonstrated by IBM and then overrun by bureaucratic scientists who declared Feynman's definition impossible to do.

Feynman meant simply; nano"technolgy" is build/take apart/rebuild things atom by atom which IBM showed spelling IBM with atoms under a microscope. Nanotechnology was technology all the way till the scientists jumped in!

RaviD
13-Jul-2011 16:09:24
SIMPLICITY; K.I.S.S! Keep it simple because I am stupid; lost its meaning in everything. I see dangers lurking around the corner for REBOL; aka., a "linuxisation". Those unfamiliar with the history of linux would do well to read up on Professor Andrew Tannenbaum; who wished Linus had used microkernels instead of the huge single kernel like windows and mac.

My fear is that the opensource community will soon jump on the REBOL bandwagon and muck it all up and make a mess of it. But then who knows?

Bill Jarvis
19-Jul-2011 3:58:44
I really like the idea of Rebol and all the work you guys have put in. I've noticed it has stalled since February.

Please don't let it die.

drebol/inetw3
19-Jul-2011 23:31:21
Simplicity. I have not commented about rebol in i think four years now.

But i have been following all the web sights, facebook, tweets, .com, .net, .org, minus altme and chats faithfully. Plugging away trying to get it to play with the browser.

The most simplist for me and also said by some new/others was posts and the Email account. It seems the core rebolers along with Carl don't truly like simple.

Simple emailing to a list and posting to this sight at least monthly can realy help all of us know whats going on. That's all thats really needed. Please inspire Us.

Let us all be honest, Rebol is no longer simple but has the power to simplify everything using code, data, and dialects. It is as mature a language as it is incomplete.

Among rebolers, we continue to agree rebol talk is unorganized and all over the place but yet it's messaging presence over public tcp/ip is hard to be found.

Whats so hard for me is i want simple. All i ever wanted from this powerful language is to use it publicly across the internet from one web page to another web page(s).

But sadly the best messaging language can communicate with almost anything accept the most important com of all, the internets' browsers in a simple ways.

Say what you will but there is a reason HTML is every where and pretty much stayed simple all these years working with chaotic mulyi-layered craziness.

The W3C was formed and standards was enforced to make HTML thee answere, the end game of all things if it wanted to be on the WWW.

Because of html/css these same w3c companies that push the standards have a question for you. What multi-layered crazy thing are you willing to by/learn and lock yourself into just to get your stuff onto the www wich you only need html/css/scripts and a server (lol).

Rebol please don't ask this question. What else do you need Rebol to do. Just keep it simple. STANDERDIZE...

Create a local browsing client server that reads html/css. Message with anything, anywhere and dump it in the networks available interface(the browser!).

Its time for a standard way to present rebol through http/html. It would stop the multi-mess software approach thats throne at the user interface.

None of it works because as hard as they try, it all lacks freedom, breavity, closing all things up, while trying to get back into the clients interface through the browser.

It would become thee powerful, SIMPLE way of doing everything else along side html. We would smile and reboling would be....

Carl in a way is just as responsible for Syllable /Red and what ever else out there as He is for Rebol. We cant find simplicity anymore even though Rebol owns it.

Its time to K.I.S.S! the nets interfaces or fall behind dying while trying to remain relevant.

Or has the Creator grown weary and tired because of the new not so simple. Just asking. You could give it away openly. Just a simple(as in stupid)thought.

RaviD
24-Jul-2011 10:33:12
Quoting; "drebol/inetw3: Its time to K.I.S.S! the nets interfaces or fall behind dying while trying to remain relevant.

Or has the Creator grown weary and tired because of the new not so simple. Just asking. You could give it away openly. Just a simple(as in stupid)thought."

DON'T GIVE IT AWAY. FALLBACK WAS IN PLACE FROM THE GETGO IF HEAVEN FORBID THE WORLD ENDED ALL REBOL SOURCE CODE WOULD BE RELEASED. THAT SAID; LAST THING WE NEED IS CHAOS FROM OPEN SORCERERS AND THEIR FLAKY MAGIX TO MUCK IT ALL UP.

Looks like the pause is well timely the six month retreat by Carl and we should now see REBOL 3.0 as the True IOS [INTERNET OPERATING SYSTEM] not iOS [Apple's garbage]. So I think it is time for Carl to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Viva L'REBOL. The "L'" is because we don't know if REBOL 3.0 is a SHE like the Federation Starship USS ENTERPRISE or a HE like whatever?

Don't get me wrong. I love Open Sorcerers and their magix so far giving the establishment a run for the money raping their Operating Systems with Wubis and SxS installs and dual boots kicking Windows and MacOSX with both shoes at once. I can hardly wait for the day when Windows becomes known as Lindows and MacOSX becomes LaxOSX. But REBOL 3.0; Ah REBOL 3.0! Thou shalt be the TRUE IOS! BEATING Plan 9 and the others by a bunch; one person writing it all!

I am learning REBOL from scratch and I look forward to teaching it to others aka.' classes demos etc. I know REBOL underneath its simple and extremely powerful commands is hyper complex sort of like the old Zen kaons etc. But to teach computer programming to toddlers and grannies give me simple lines which do a lot than ask me to write extensive subroutines. I don't have the patience for it and I know toddlers and grannies dont have the patience either. So I learn and I await the REBOL 3.0 IOS.

what did he smoke ?
30-Jul-2011 7:04:14
what did the previous commenter smoke ?

Carl may do whatever he wants, rebol is dead. It's too late. He had his window, but the window is gone now. better learn LUA while we wait for RED.

-pekr-
30-Jul-2011 14:12:46
No matter what did previous commenter smoke, your comment is completly missing on integrity. So, Rebol is dead, and we should use Lua (meaningless in today's commercial world as well)? Otoh we should wait for RED, Rebol inspired language, while Rebol itself is dead, right? :-)
what did he smoke ?
2-Aug-2011 7:06:37
fyi. LUA is used by more organizations (commercial , public or educational) than Rebol, just to name a few :- PETROBRAS ( petro brazil - largest company in South America continent) , ADOBE, Social Media Press, CSTUG, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro . Also Lua has been featured in ACM publications and presented at ACM meetings. Lua can also run on Apple's mobile devices as well as android mobile devices in addition to regular devices and os

how does Rebol compare to that ?

Every body knows that REBOL has no future and a dead end. I know it hurts bad to learn that something that one has spent decades on has no future.

RED is a NEW language inspired by Rebol, IT IS NOT REBOL. (see DOC KIMBEL's documentation for clarification about the language and the pictures of Rebol "before" and 'where it is now"

similarly JAVA is inspired by C++ but is not C++.

RUBY is inspired by PERL, SMALLTALK but is NOT PERL, SMALLTALK.

C# is inspired by JAVA, but is NOT JAVA. Almost anyone can give you tons of other examples.

to go around saying that JAVA is C++ or RUBY is PERL, SMALLTALK is absurd. same applies to RED.

people who want to see, open their eyes

-pekr-
2-Aug-2011 8:41:50
LUA has near to zero meaning in today's hyped world, and that world is - HTML5, mobile devices app development. I was not trying to compare it to anything, nor even REBOL, just stating obvious.

The only thing that really hurts is to learn, that some ppl have close to zero insight into actual situation, and still fall for "language wars", "this product is best", "this has no future", and other similar attitudes.

And if you dare to say, that REBOL - RED is similar to RUBY - PERL/SMALLTALK, etc., you should learn a bit of a language design then, while we wait for R3 :-) ...

danakil
6-Aug-2011 23:31:51
(at)-pekr-
(this is a friendly, honest inquiry, not meant to initiate an argument)

Does your last sentence ("...if you dare to say, that REBOL - RED is similar to RUBY - PERL/SMALLTALK, etc., you should learn a bit of a language design then,...") imply that Red is way more different from REBOL than Ruby vs Smalltalk (IMO, Ruby has nothing to do with Perl other than being labeled a "scripting language" in the early 2000's), C# vs Java, Scheme vs LISP, J vs APL?
Or does it imply that Red is essentially the same beast as REBOL and does not bring anything new into the picture? Your experience insider's insight into this matter will be sincerely appreciated as I belong to a company who hasbeen interested in REBOL now for 10 years, was a paid R2 customer, and feels sad about the current R3 situation.
-pekr-
8-Aug-2011 9:55:26
Danakil,

I am surely not a language guru. My reaction was just general. But even then - stating that Ruby is inspired by Perl or Smalltalk, then we can reall say, that anything is inspired by anything.

In that regard, I really consider RED being a REBOL look-a-like. Language you will use (source RED level code) is going to be really similar to REBOL. Even Red/System is similar to REBOL.

It is just that the aproach and surrounding is going to be different. RED will be compillable to its intermediate form - RED/System. It should target even some embedded CPU forms,etc. Doc's ambition is server and embedded computing, so GUI is not planned.But - I think someone will port View engine anyway (if its licence will allow it). Kaj is recently investigating possibility of binding to SDL.

And last but not least - it is fully open-sourced, so its development should not be blocked like in the case of R3. But - I hope R3 development will be resumed soon too ...

what did he smoke?
14-Aug-2011 7:16:07
(at)pork ...sorry... (at)pekr

sorry I couldn't reply to your comments earlier, I don't come here very often. just visiting here about once a year, for a short period of a few days, just to see what the competition is doing. I do the the same for all other "smaller" languages. "smaller" in the sense not mainstream and not many programmers using it. let me disclose before I start that I use java, javascript, c#, html, xml, rest, soap, json, and the likes at work i.e mainstream.

if you read my initial comments 30-Jul-2011 7:04:14, it's saying rebol is dead. It's too late...it's better to learn LUA. it's clear I am comparing rebol with LUA.

do you understand english ?

Your comment

["So, Rebol is dead, and we should use Lua (meaningless in today's commercial world as well)?" ]

Since my first posting was saying better learn LUA than Rebol, yes I maintain that Lua IS MORE meaningful in the commercial world today THAN Rebol. FYI. in addition to the other facts provided in my second posting, it is also used a lot in the software games industry and it's among the top 11 languages in the TIOBE index as at today, and there are more people earning a living with LUA , how does Rebol compare to that ?

BOTTOM LINE Lua is MORE commercially used THAN Rebol and I have listed organisations that use it (in my 2nd posting), these are million dollars organizations, one is even over 100 BILLION dollars market capitalization, again how does Rebol compare to that ?

your comment

"Otoh we should wait for RED, Rebol inspired language, while Rebol itself is dead, right? :-) "

Of course we have to wait for RED, it's still being developed, it can take years before you get a stable and mature, so what's your problem ?

if you are saying that because RED being Rebol inspired is around means REBOL is not dead, you are wrong.

RED being just born and becoming alive does not mean REBOL is.

we have to wait for RED because it was just "born" this year and is being developed now and RED is not REBOL, we won't know until it is ready for prime time. it may be inspired by REBOL but it is not REBOL.

My comment is something inspired by something else is still not the original thing.

anyway Doc Kimbel said himself on his site, it is a NEW language.

so who are you to say it is the same if the creator of RED is saying it is not ?

also do us a favour and go read his roadmap and view his presentation before you make any comments.

pay especial attention to his photos/paintings of "rebol 14 years ago" and "where it is today". why don't you go tell him he is wrong? you know why? because you are a COWARD, you can pick only on newcomers who are easier to pick on and you know you cannot pick on Doc Kimbel, because he knows more about REBOL and the rebol world than you, and he will kick your b*tt.

I invite all readers of this post to go to http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html and look at the slide, and the roadmap http://www.red-lang.org/p/roadmap.html to see for themselves what the facts are.

also by the way MATZ the creator of Ruby said himself that he was inspired by smalltalk and PERL , so who are you to say that it is not if the creator is saying that himself?

and James Gosling himself said that they started from C++ and removed all the dangerous features plus other changes/improvements and added some their own ideas, to come up with JavA.

(continued in next post because of post size limits)

what did he smoke?
14-Aug-2011 7:21:09
(continuing from previous post)

if you want to make comments about what I wrote originally on 30-Jul-2011 7:04:14, please do so, but have the decency to stick to my original comments please. I did not compare rebol with the mainstream languages, so why are you digressing from what I said ?

when you got caught with me proving that LUA is used by more commercial organizations than Rebol and you got your facts wrong, then you tried to shift the conversation to something else like HTML5 or mobile. Man up, acknowledge you were wrong or you didn't understand my comments...

where did I in my original comment compare Rebol to or mention mainstream languages? or are you sure you can read english ?

I leave it to the other readers of this blog to see what a sore/bad loser you are .

your level of comprehension of english sucks, instead of telling people to go learn something, you should go yourself first learn more about the English language and communication ;o( I don't even think you know what the word integrity means... If you knew what it means, you would acknowledge that you got your facts wrong and you strayed away from my original comments, instead of acting like a sissy and trying to change the conversation into something else. Man up !

i may be young, and you may be an old prick in your forties or fifties based on the fact that you said you have been around during the amiga days , but when someone does put out some bullsh*t it's still bullsh*t irrespective of how old he is.

my next visit to this site may be in over a year or two down the road, there are too many other more active and alive languages than Rebol for me to look at, stop porking around in the meantime. Besides I don't think you are worth any further reply.

so long (at)pekr...oh sorry what? ... you mean it's (at)pork? ... and also (at)dork? and (at)jerk too ? ... oh I got it, it's (at)pork & (at)dork & (at)jerk ...

-pekr-
14-Aug-2011 13:50:23
(at)what-did-he-smoke: I can clearly see, that while you might have some technical knowledge, you just parrot what other language authors say, without any sign of a technical knowledge of what they are talking about!

You also have almost zero insight into REBOL and related technologies and situation, and hence you are absolutly uncappable to make any relevat conclusions. And even more - you are arrogant and personal.

As for Doc - I can meet him on a daily basis on the AltME RED channel, and you can be sure I knew about RED coming sooner than it was publicly announced. And why? Because I feel about Doc as a friend, so no need to call me a coward here.

Please do us a favor - visit us not sooner than in a one year, and be happy with whatever technologies you use :-)

From further on, I will not communicate with someone questioning my english, while not being able to have any insight into a written word. I will also not communicate with someone, hiding behind a stupid nick.

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 17:01:33
First thing to the coward guy banning me from altme you are the worst and I know who you are :) (Reichart :P)

Second Karl Rassensath you are ABSOLUTLY right IO is more or less the whole set of features we always dreamed out of the box for rebol and that we never had... Now we can ask why ? and try to have a reflexion to give an answer to this question ?

OK I pass in vulcan mode and use pure logic I see R3 being mainly focused on rebol2/core so I deduce that Carl don't want rebol to be something more than rebol/core ogg, opengl portability all this tires him you want it ? in a word do it yourself using the undocumented hostkit thing... If you said to me that RMA did produce something around the hostkit I will remind you that the so called hostkit was made by Carl and that they had more or less to feel the blank and add their things on top...Code wizards my A**.

in september 2011 truth is that robert muench isn't able to hold a candle to area-tc with his code wizards made RMA/r3GUI supported by the whole still active rebol community... this is fact so it's truth this is cartesian thinking and demonstration the base of any scientific serrious work.

Pekr ... what have you produce this past years ? you pick a fight on an easy prey but you don't allow rma/r3gui to be something worth than what was carl emplementation and that is way so far than rebgui the reference in the domain.

Carl is gone and you are all on Red ... can you explain that ?

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 17:06:14
PEkr if you ask me what I produced those past years I will say area-tc the most advanced and ambisious projet rebol world everseen so the most jealoused but 2 years later still not reached by r3gui.RMA :P

Steeve helped me alot on that why he didn't helped r3guirma to aquire and overtake that technology :P my source are free, available abandoned to anyone having the guts to take them and do better what else do you need ? aaaaaaah yeah me doing the work for you and you getting the grants for it... RMA/r3gui was presented from the begining not a lgpl project but as a step stone for a group of pro to base their professional reputation and activity... sorry I don't work for free if others in the same project are getting paid... I'm not that dumb

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 17:10:34
(at)what did he smoke: never lower yourself to insults work ... bring to their face master piece that they will die to get tons are the rebol project abandonned by their author cause their authors lost faith in rebol.

this is the only way to prouve them wrong. by the way appart the insults I like your style be the next reboler generation that will burry us and make us the myserable we are.

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 17:17:43
(at) Carl Sassenrath ... you have gold in your brain and in rebol I'm astonished to see that you toss them cause you don't have the guts to have a serriously planed and managed project.

Carl rebol community is dieing since you turned your back on all the great things you invented for rebol let me list them maybe the nostalgia will bring you back to your common sens:

- Rebcode - Rebol Console - RebService - Rebol web browser plugin - IOS - REBOL/desktop - REBOL.org - REBOL/VID - REBOL/SDK

All those technologies are not even reached in r3... this is a fact too.

Shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 17:28:34
In fact I really dream not on a alternative solution more or less a clone of rebol but not rebol. I dream of hacker people of this new generation to see the beauty of rebol reverse ingeneer it one to one in better and make it available to anyone hosting their work in china or philipina one of those country that don't give a damn on intellection property and patent ... This is the only you guys the old Gurus to take the younger generation serriously.

but this means work this means being organised volunteer and dedicated. This is not what I see so far please do me a favor prove me wrong.

Anyway I amazed there is still such a thing that a younger generation of reboler for a product that even his God abandoned and toss far away ...

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 17:42:12
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO the conclusion of 13 years of work around the Keep it simple concept and clean design is that it's not WORTHWHILE THE EFFORT !!! this conclusion is brough to us by none of the less Mr Carl Sassenrath himself the only REBOL GOD around! all of you around here posting here including me don't hold even an atom of a candle to Carl ... this is the truth and if I was wrong well lets say the truth Red would already in september be more than want rebol ever been .... And it is not ...

So you talk big but you are unhabilited child that will never reach carl's god level. Carl left and what did you concretly done to bring him back ? nothing you just find him excuses to do this... and they try to toy around with red ... wich is just the 6th rebol clone like made this past decade. Here again prove me wrong massively join Red project and make it so big that even carl will shed tears out of your big level and acheivements !

Computing programing is about acheivements. For example lets take Linus Torvald design of linux kernel ... it is not the most advanced top notch technology it is not the best possible designe but it as this quality ... It does what it is supposed to do it is efficient and it exists where most of the microkernel genius designs only exists on paper.. I hope carl as a form conceptor of AMIGA OS will like my analogy ... :)

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 17:49:52
While a language like IO progressed ... and we all know about IO since it was discuted on altme in 2004 before r3... So don't make the people surprised and discovering it... REbol regressed ... R3 as less feature than r2 but it's potentially more open ? yeah in 3 years that the hostkit thing is on the table nothing much came out of it and r3gui has a hudge part of binary blob which means well you can only build on top of it but you are forbid to touch the ground level... For example I wanted to add to r3gui transparent background since I can't add an option transparent to handle this in r3gui then this is a void effort ... you don't even see that ...
Shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 18:13:32
Main problem of rebol is that the bounty hunters guru are not the guruness they pretend to be ... and as they couldn't confront me with facts they banned me ... this is the sign they are weak they are hobbistic people that will never produce anything alike Rebol.

If you suddently out of your ego work on REd like crazy will you ever reach rebol 2 level. I mean serriously I know you, I know what you produced those past years I know that you are unable to work together on the same project for example... so how in hell will you be able to reach rebol level and take over it ? and as wat did he smoke said ... rebol is dead... but not only that the whole concept of keep it simple is stupid ... I'm not paid 7000 euros a month to keep my softwares simple on the contrary the more complicated they are the more work I will have and this is my future incomes and this how the software industries now in days make their profits... selling support services for complicated ERP half assed SAP solution :P and if you can interger oracl in it then you are sure to provide support and have incomes of money for the next decade... I tryed to explain this to you but you are a bunch of blind guys that just refuse to understand if this was a religion I would say you are fanatics... And with fanatic there is no way around to reason with them.

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 18:22:33
rebol keep it simple concept design proven to be a faillure so basing red in this dead faillure concept isn't this sign of a forward faillure...

And as your contributions to red are spycoticly monitored by github you can't even fool around and say you are working alot on it ... but hey I know you ... never forget that I know that for you guys working hard on a project is doing 2000 post on altme that noone will ever give a damn about ... in fact Carl didn't give so much a damn about what happend in altme that he created r3/chat to avoid on purpose altme blabering ... and you don't even think about this ... this is normal stuff normal move a guy keep spending his time on inventing new ways to control the way he exchange with you and you don't even say hey enough of it please... because you don't care all you want is save the face and show happy smiles ... and tell Carl how genius he is in the whole bunch of hypocrits you are.

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 18:40:26
to what did he smoke choose another nickname ... shadwolf is already taken :P but something shorter then do a group of youngster motivated like you ... and do your best to bring a rebol 1 to 1 clone and you can in that effort for example take one of the 5th clone already existing ... I would be you ... I would choose to bring back to life R# just to slap in the face the people not able to bring it to something worthwhile since then C# in .net framework or in mono progressed heeeeeeeeeeeeelll alot ... damn if only rebol had progressed that much in the same time span ...
shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 18:45:37
not telling Karl that hum ... rebol is a sold product you should pay a licence for ... therefore, ogg opengl, etc are freee lgpl based products and it goes against lgpl to include those without providing the whole font source code of the solution using them ... and to have that solution to adopt lgpl too ...

So in short rebol doesn't have any lgpl common feature cause it's a commercial closed black box product ... as simple as this...

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 18:57:45
onetom ... serriously ... stop being insulting and buy your mac book even if i was the best of the best clever genius finishing r3 would be imposible since I don't have the whole source code ... I can decompile it ... yeah but then I will have a Assembly soup that will takes me a decade to bring back to C code ... and then I will hace to do this again with macosX and linux versions ... If I want to have a r3 the faster way is to take one of the many clones and bring it back to life then implement on top of it with a bunch of motivated people 5 to 6 people in a year I could achieve r3 level portable everywhere 1 to 1 features even including r2 abandonned features...

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 19:01:13
Pekr.... choose your camp already you are defending rebol or you are working on Red ?

Pekr and you do blah blah blah with no code behind your whole contribution in code lines to red project is a whole amazing amount of ZERO lines of code ! nothing more nothing less :P

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 19:19:31
(at) pekr : As for Doc - I can meet him on a daily basis on the AltME RED channel, and you can be sure I knew about RED coming sooner than it was publicly announced. And why? Because I feel about Doc as a friend, so no need to call me a coward here.

fine you can wave your tail to DockImble as much as you want ... but you still don't give him a single line of code .... this is the only thing matter you lost your Carl master so now out of despaire you wave your tail to Doc ... how I pitty you serriously ...

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 19:32:34
and pekr to answer in anticipation your question why I don't participate to Red? As a programmer professional making his living out of coding in anything else than rebol I could reply to you that ... first you guys the very same community that led rebol to a dead end are in charge of red project... in second I would say that I don't want an inspired solution of rebol but a true clone that makes carl regrets his move to abandon us. As third I would say pekr you don't have the skill to do half of what rebol is ... you are only able to vaguely test it and post your a** licking comments on altme red group... If I take you on a serrious design feature discution I'm absolutly sure you will blow away ... Doc isn't like you ... I would be doc I would run the farther away from your kind pekr... cause you not and will never bring anything constructive...

Red is your new graal ? but that's only because carl isn't driving around r3 anymore I bet you anything the day carl gets back you will wave your tail to him... Pekr ... amaze me here is your challenge by the end of octobre a hole 7 weeks produce something like VID for RED based on SDL ... Have guts do it stop chatting on altme or here and act ... for once in your life and know that for a drunken stupid guy like me 7 weeks of work to do VID for red used SDL is 5 weeks too much ... and unlike you I can prouve it I can work H24 stop all my professional work just to prouve how myserable and unsignificant you are can you do the same to me ? We all know that you can't ... So please stop it ... you are riddiculous ... you have the credibility of a sand grain in the desert...

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 19:40:59
Pekr on the fact that I can any time stop my activity to work on serriously on a solution that I have in heart ask Robert Muench how was done MDPGUI port to IOS ask Steeve how dedicated and responsive I was to area-tc those are facts not only blabering facts and this are just a tiny sample of what I can do...

On the last point about why I don't participate to r3gui ... and red is the lack of vision ... the lack of goals ... pekr you saw the early stage discussions of Rebgui can you honnestly say that the work around r3gui or red is something to be compared to what we done with ashley around rebgui ? since you don't reach that level why I would loose my time with you I lost my time with ashley and rebgui and it ended to be abandonned not even a step stone for the next stage ...

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 19:51:33
Pekr I know you ... you will never respond serriously to what I say all you will be able to produce is a stupid set of comments like you did for the statements of "WDHS" ...

And so this sorry to tell you this prouve my point you are not the code guru you think you are in fact you avoid as much you can to produce code lines ...

Those are facts Pekr so those are truth...

Pekr this is not only for you this is for the whole bunch of people in altme spending their free time on blabering instead of coding ... Learn your lesson already !!!

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 19:56:45
can someone explain to me what is that ?

jessesielaff/red - GitHub https://github.com/jessesielaff/red - En cache red - Red writes like Ruby and runs like JavaScript.

apparently red is already taken by someone else and based on ruby : javascript ... therefore REd name as to be changed ... to avoid confusion... this is typically the sign of autistic people that only see what is shown to them without a second thought of it

shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 20:03:18
last subject of concern for me is the bsd3-licence base for red ... they reserve them the rights upon any commercial lucrative fruit they won't work to create ... nice .. As statement I never did that ...
shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 20:05:51
last comment on red ... and maybe the most significative ... what is red ? if I look rds files all I see is rebol code ... in a cheaper way.
shadwolf
10-Sep-2011 20:32:09
people actually producing code lines for red are a whole total of 3 ... earl with the lowest contribution, PeterWAWOOD and dockimble ... no Pekr there.. So all your big talks about how great is red you know what it's void unsignificant no even worth the effort to read etc...
Shadwolf
12-Sep-2011 14:43:54
(at) Ravid ... MUUUUUUWAHAHAHAHAHAH yeah I agree what did you smoke ?

Lets take 2 examples blender opensource developped and rebol developed by one single man alone managing everything which one is in Cahos ?

Rebol had no official release since a year now. Carl don't care and that's the truth. If I want bug correction for r2 It most likely impossible but time to time suddently carl drops a r2 bug fixed version like in 2009 and 2010 why ? What are those bug corrected ? Why those bugs suddently appears to him critical for de deprecated dead announced VM like rebol2 ? betwin 2005 and 2009 no versions were produced of r2.

Shadwolf
12-Sep-2011 14:47:52
(at) Ravid I prefere cahos dev forks etc rather than no dev at all. And the fact that rebol is a monolith produced by a single man don't forbid the fact that people will grew tired of it and fork to do their own opensourced stuff like it's the case with RED.

People are leaving to do red on the face of rebol and all that inspire to Carl is .... no reaction at all.

Shadwolf
12-Sep-2011 14:56:08
To the carl's no reaction we can ask us why he don't directly do an intervention at least to set things the right way.

Because he left, he don't give a damn, so he will not take 5 minutes to throw on the internet his though-

Can rebol on it's actual stage affort a full year of empty developement. I recall that betwin november 2010 and march 2011 all he did was produce 6 bug fix / small extensions of the host-kit. So we can say that in r3 there his nothing new since at least May 2010 (introduction of the host-kit) and for Rebol 2 there is nothing new since rebcode in 2004...

The fact that carl talks to rma and rma transmit to us is the least insulting thing ... he have time to exchange email with RMA but not to speak about what happend what are the perspective what miss to r3 to be official etc... ( if r3 is supposed to have one to one enhanced features with r2 hell it's still a looooooong way! all top level features introduced in r2 are missing in r3 (even a friendly console to start with) )

Edoc
12-Sep-2011 19:27:02
Shadwolf, whoa, please don't drink and post. We understand your feelings, but please get a grip on your emotions. If you can't deal with REBOL's current status limbo, there are always other programming languages and communities where you may find greater success.
-pekr-
12-Sep-2011 22:40:28
Shadwolf - any sane person reading your monolog here will very easily conclude, why you have been banned from the AltME world. I am kind of sorry for you ...
robbie
13-Sep-2011 3:44:16
Can someone please say what is happening in Rebol world? The only thing moving at the moment are the comments on this article.

Is all the hard work going down the pan?

Edoc
13-Sep-2011 7:12:19
Hi robbie- Publicly, REBOL has been in limbo for many months. Privately it is possible that work among project contributors is continuing, but this is speculation on my part. The sudden public withdrawal and lack of communication from the founder and leader of REBOL, Carl Sassenrath, clouds the legacy of this language. If the grand REBOL experiment has ended, I assume that Carl would give the community closure. If his hiatus is due to health or other personal reasons, I know the entire community hopes for a speedy recovery. Robbie, I have no inside knowledge of the goings-on at REBOL, so treat anything I've written as something by a casual observer.
Henrik
13-Sep-2011 12:59:46
Edoc, Carl is working (or at least were until the beginning of August) on a project, which for now, does not appear to be REBOL related, but has taken most of his waking hours for several months.

I assume that he wants to blog about this project at some point, at least that is what he mentioned in a private conversation.

Meanwhile, some R3 things, like the GUI, are cooking elsewhere, currently with some cool automated testing facilities being implemented:

http://rebol.hmkdesign.dk/files/r3/gui/010.mov

Also some important bugs have been found, so there will be plenty of stuff for Carl to work on, when he gets back to R3.

Edoc
13-Sep-2011 16:41:39
Thanks for that minor update, Henrik! A little goes a long way. It would be great if someone could post news of that type from time to time, so that people don't start panicking Shadwolf-style.
Steven White
14-Sep-2011 7:13:20
Maybe he has to pay the bills.

I have just recently started to use REBOL more heavily at work as we make a major move to a new hardware infrastructure (all Windows servers and desktops). With more use comes more understanding, and with more understanding comes more appreciation. I would hate to see anything happen to REBOL. I haven't had so much fun programming in many years.

Robbie
19-Sep-2011 13:45:08
Thanks for the feedback. I'll check back in a while I guess.
Nicolas F.
20-Sep-2011 7:24:18
I agree with Shadwolf. The reality is harsh. I like REBOL but it is going nowhere. The developement of REBOL has stalled many years ago. What is too complex to maintain? Has it failed because of too much complexity?
Edoc
24-Sep-2011 9:12:02
I know I'm gonna get hammered for writing this, but REBOL seems like a case-study that answers why open-source development is superior to the "lone genius" model.

Related topic: Read the article 'The Rise of Worse is Better' by Richard Gabriel and ask yourself which approach REBOL might resemble-- the MIT/Stanford approach (the diamond-like jewel scenario of "the right thing") or the New Jersey approach (aka "worse is better")?

http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

Carl Read
29-Sep-2011 3:02:52
Further reading, perhaps...

Linus Torvalds’s Lessons on Software Development Management...

He makes two points early on about what developers get wrong. One is that people will help them. Instead "You make it public, and then you assume that you'll have to do all the work, and ask people to come up with suggestions of what you should do, not what they should do."

REBOL's not open-source, but my guess would be Carl was surprised early on at how little software was produced that leveraged REBOL. Why didn't thousands of dialects materialize, for instance?

The other thing developers get wrong according to Torvalds is they think it's the code that's important. He says no, it's the users who're important. Given the number of REBOL enthusiasts I've seen who've eventually given up on it, this is something I think REBOL definitely got wrong.

Steven White
29-Sep-2011 7:31:42
One reason there is not more REBOL software might be related to the fact that there are some things that still are commonly done, but that REBOL can not do.

I just now figured out a way to put text on paper. Yes, there is PDF maker, but I could not understand it. I finally got printing to work because we have standardized on a Windows printing network with HP printers. With that reliable infrastructure, I can format pages with embedded PCL and send them out through the server.

Another common operation (at least where I work) is reading and writing records in a data file, without bringing the whole file into memory. Yes, one can access databases, but sometimes various things make that not an option.

Regarding dialects, I had an idea once and wondered if it was the kind of thing solved by a dialect, but I had absolutely no idea how to even make that evaluation, let alone produce the dialect.

I keep coming back to REBOL because I had an Amiga, and I figure that something written by the guy who wrote the Amiga OS must have some hidden genius in it, and I want to find out what it is. I wonder sometimes if Carl is so far ahead of everyone else that he is making tools to solve problems no one even is aware of yet, similar to putting multi-tasking in the Amiga. Or, maybe he's just a guy trying out a new idea and is groping along with its development just like we are groping along trying to find ways to use it.

shadwolf
29-Sep-2011 14:49:28
pekr being sorry for me don't change the fact that you are a terrible programer :P. You are in no position to criticise other and less to adress to people like you did to "what did he smoke". You can act all cocky but you are just a sorry ass licker.

As the banning well being banned of a secret world where only 20 guys are really active and less than 10 are actually productive ... How to tell you to allow you to understand how I feel .... Hum...I don't care it just prooven how narrow is your little brains. I just like to mention as the pinacle of this community stupidity the fact that out of the 50 people more or less still interrested by rebol you choose to ban people which is ridiculous. Altme never was the wide open paradise where people exchange ideas to make things better. It always was this closed chating tools where people create their sects.

As for the fact that rebol is a dead project. you all agree with it ...As for the behaving of Carl will not being told by him that he was putting rebol on hold doesn't bother you. Cause he let you the RMAGUI bone to chew and with that you are happy.

It's a big chance for you that an other project like Red is launched that allow you to continue to meaningless and endless chat about it on altme.

I'm not drunk I'm disgusted to have spent 10 years of my life trying to bring up this community ... And now I should loose my time again with you to develop Red in your place?

As for RMA GUI ... all I can say it's ugly it's grey and it lacks everything ... and to says that I'm based on the movie made by henrik and I'm comparing with rebgui by ashley. you droped R2/vid and ashley rebgui to produce that ? and that is the best that code wizard can offers ??

The only thing I kind of liked was the multi row table but you are still after 1 year of dev super far from the multi tab I did in 10 hours for rebgui in it's early project just to show that table could have sortable multi column with title butons could have more than text in the rows and could even have different background colors and that was 6 years ago. compared to area-tc what I see in rmagui is lame. you can't trick me there pekr ...

but yeah like pekr said rebol 3 alpha 111 is fantastic, Carl is such a good guy, and REBOL will soon spread word wide.

shadwolf
29-Sep-2011 15:06:39
I always asked this simple question REBOL being this all fabtastic that it is depicted and the other languages are so ugly and lame then why rebol isn't more used?

rebol developement was never neeeeeeeeeever a flowing programed thing.. When we were expecting a release It wasn't comming when we were expecting a new thing we had bug fixing sessions when we expecting fixing bugs session we had new things, when we were expecting deep advanced documentation we had scripts and when we expected advanced scripts to illustrate how to use new consept we had lame 3 paragraphs documentation. when we expected carl to talk to us he was diverting on another communication tool. when we expected carl to tell us about rebol futur plans and why in the hell R3 is still in alpha then Carl was gone.

this is what the rebol community experienced those past 10 years ... this is what the remains of this shaterred community should show to carl and make him reflect about it..

Now don't insult my intelligence pekr you are all fired up about Red but I know that if tomorow carl comeback saying "rebol 3 1.0 is out and I put it in public domain" Red will be dead ... at most the red authors will adapt to rebol what red taught them..

Henrik
30-Sep-2011 0:27:58
Steven,

I have the impression that you don't see more REBOL scripts publicly, because many people write their own specialized dialects quickly and don't see a good reason to share them, because they are only useful to themselves.

By the time you download and adapt an existing script to your purposes, you could have written a better version for yourself.

That is the "problem" with REBOL as the small amount of typing needed, simply doesn't justify downloading anything, but the largest and most tested frameworks.

That is the case for me anyway, where it may be a large amount of work to make the code sufficiently universal for general consumption.

I have written a private framework for printing around John Niclasen's Postscript generator, but re-working that for public use will take me many weeks. (On the whole, printing is not much fun to work with.)

So far, I have written a single public dialect (HTML Dialect) and changed an existing one (VID Extension Kit).

I have published four scripts on rebol.org in 2005 and 2008, all of which are superceded by better versions today.

In short, there is not much motivation to publish scripts. Teaching and educating about REBOL is much more valuable.

Henrik
30-Sep-2011 0:33:57
"As for RMA GUI ... all I can say it's ugly it's grey and it lacks everything ... and to says that I'm based on the movie made by henrik and I'm comparing with rebgui by ashley. you droped R2/vid and ashley rebgui to produce that ? and that is the best that code wizard can offers ??"

For the record here, skinning has not started yet, because the style creation methods are still in flux and starting to skin now will be a waste of time and money. The skinning work will be done by me and I'm busy with another RMA project.

Salim H
1-Oct-2011 12:39:25
(at)shadwolf
I always asked this simple question REBOL being this all fabtastic that it is depicted and the other languages are so ugly and lame then why rebol isn't more used?

you hit the nail right on the head !! the answer is, it's not that great after all, otherwise there would have been tons of people flocking around it.

Many months ago, I came across a blog at http://albert2233.wordpress.com/

whoever wrote that wordpress blog seems to have been accurate in his analysis and prediction.

(at)what did he smoke?

BOTTOM LINE Lua is MORE commercially used THAN Rebol

Like your style and sharp tongue, You are right about LUA, obviously the person arguing with you didn't have his facts right.

However you did not mention Ansca mobile www.anscamobile.com , they use LUA language. and it is a very popular sdk platform for devices using Android, and Apple iOS ( iphone, ipad) and also Nook.

(at)nicolas f

Has it failed because of too much complexity?

or is it because of over-simplification paralysis ?

Carl Read
1-Oct-2011 20:19:20
Salim H said: "it's not that great after all"

Ah, but it is. Ask yourself, why would someone go to the trouble of devoting months and eventually years of their life (no doubt) to developing a REBOL-inspired language (meaning Red) if anything else out there was good enough?

Simply put, the language is great. What isn't is some of its implementation, (hence the need for R3), and its business model. And it's the business model that's impacted on improving the implementation and the rate of the language's adoption. (Or lack there of.)

To be successful (as in widely adopted) requires it to be either open-sourced or for RT to acquire enough funds to pay enough programmers to finish R3 to Carl's satisfaction. And even in the latter case, it'd still need to be an essential part of some very popular technology for people to consider learning a language based on a proprietary core. (Programmers who ask whether REBOL will get them a job will know the answer's yes at the point REBOL programmers become fungible.)

-pekr-
2-Oct-2011 1:07:07
Salim H: as for "what did he smoke" and the LUA argument - it was me. REBOL can't be compared to LUA,LUA is surely much more widely spread and used. I am not blind to deny that. What I did say is - it is mostly irrelevant in a big picture, used mainly by tools authors as a glue language. Have you ever worked in enterprise? SAP, and other big guys? Where's Python, Perl,PHP, LUA, whatever in there? The other kind of world is hyped and moving HTML/JS/CSS pace, and that is why I said that turning myself to LUA will not save my world. Ppl should be able to read between the words, not just stupidly infight in a style - this one is better, no, wait, that one language is better. I don't need a list of companies using LUA, becuase it is not important to how I meant my comment.

As for your qeustion of why REBOL has failed, my simple answer is - it did not reach critical enough mass usage in certain period of time, and some 80% of failure should be adressed to Rebol Technologies. We asked Carl to open-source so many times, but Carl does not believe in open-source. R3 uses some hybrid model, where only a kernel is closed source, but that's it - still not enough, if your guru is not available.

Carl is apparently working on a different project. He did not abandon R3, but otoh he's not available, and starting in few weeks, it will be 1 year, since he went silent mostly on all channels. And that is imo a big failure - instead of open-sourcing things, he choosed to burry R3 under.

I know that if Carl would read my words, he would not agree. He still might return to more regulear R3 development, but as someone mentioned here one interview with Linus - it's not about the code, but about ppl, the ecosystem. And many ppl lost confidence in R3 development process. The question is, if it can be ever cured ...

As for RED. Many of us like REBOL. Some ppl started to use Python, some might went to use LUA, etc. - but - we can't deny anyone's preferences, so if anyone sees any value in RED, it should get its chance. It is the old time question - why yet another language? So - any direct suggestion to REBOL community of where should they move instead, is totally irrelevant - let anyone choose what he/she thinks is best direction for him/her.

Salim H.
2-Oct-2011 9:58:11
A language is part of a solution to address the needs and meet the goals, whatever they happen to be.When a language is assessed to determine if it is a good candidate vs another one, there are many criteria you have to look at, among others :-

how much ecosystem does it have , how easy is it to learn , how much documentation there is , how big is the community , how predictable and serious is the leadership , how much support do you have , how active is the community , how fast does it run , how risky is it to invest our time and business in , how high is the risk that it will disappear or its development stopped , how complete it is , where is it in its life cycle , how much it can interact with other technologies , how competitive is it to use versus other languages , what is the longevity , how does it scale , how does it compare technically vs other languages , how frequent is it release cycle , how stable, mature and production ready is it , can it be used in the enterprise without risk , what are other risks , and a lot more criteria... (including technical)

One cannot just say my language is better than yours ... yes based on what ? it has to be based on a lot of objective criteria not on emotion only or 1 or 2 points. Unlike decades ago, in today's world, language itself has become just a commodity whether I like it or not.

When you assess Rebol against these criteria, it won't come out in the top list when compared with other languages. There are so many unknown and risks.

My comment was to answer Shadwolf's question, about why if rebol was fantastic and other languages were lame, how come they don't use it , but they use other languages. My explanation to him was, Rebol is not that good, attractive enough at this point to lure those millions of developers and organizations towards it.

There are millions of developers and millions of businesses out there who have to make decisions as to what language to use all the time. If Rebol had reached a point that the benefits vastly outnumber its drawbacks when compared with other languages, you can be sure you would have seen millions of them running towards it, including my own company.

I co-own a software consulting company with 3 other partners and let me assure you,when we assess whether to use a language, we drill in, on every aspect before we make a decision, it's not based on emotion only or a few criteria only. we have the lives of those 70 people at risk, if we make a bad decision. In terms of IT experience, the 4 owners have worked at Big Blue and 2 global Banks and 3 global Accounting firms and one electronic conglomerate, prior to opening our own shop. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to show off, but just to show we have solid experience in the field - over 100 years (all 4 owners together.)

I cannot comment about the RED part, as I don't know RED that much. It's too early, we don't even know if RED is going to be successful or not. Only time will tell.

Sorry for such a long comment.

Salim H.
2-Oct-2011 10:05:21
"we have the lives of those 70 people at risk"
should have been
"we have the lives of our 70 employees at risk"
Salim H.
2-Oct-2011 10:59:41
by Big Blue, I mean IBM.

this is a clarification so that people are not confused when reading the comments.

I realized quite late after posting my comments, that there is also a movie called Big Blue.

shadwolf
3-Oct-2011 0:30:31
commercial failure of rebol is the reason advanced by Carl to drop the rebol alpha 3.0 developement.

I know pekr don't analyse that this way but it is that way...

Actually what do rebol technology sell ? the only product sold are rebol/command (149 USD) and rebol/SDK (250 USD) both are based on rebol2 and had no major improvements since 2003...

Initially rebol was for more than 30 plateforms now it's barelly for 3 plateforms and with big differencies. actually the REBOL3/GUI is mostly available for windows, and without the changes we wanted to see in rebol/vid, better set of more usefull widgets to start with, impossibility to set an application icon for the taskbar, and we lost the hability to hack the windows systray using system/port.

rebol 3 alpha was stamped rebol 2.100.X.X.X ... so till now rebol 3 is merely a concept. After 111 versions it's still in alpha and in more than 6 year still no clear plans about it and no product sold around it... So this cloudy project wich is the new core and soul of rebol is not making a dime. Worst rebol2 was dropped cause full of bugs and too hard to maintain so after presenting rebol 2 this way who will still buy rebol/command or rebol/sdk licence based on rebol2, knowing that those products don't evolve anymore.

So you would make rebol being a commercial failure, which means no more people massively buying new licences on a regular pace anymore, on purpose you wouldn't had made it in a different way.

I recall that at the time rebol community was the most active it was when rebol/pro was sold and that most of us where trying to show how to do the same stuffs that in rebol/pro but for free :) using rebol based specific solutions like rebol sql protocols instead of using odbc:// feature which was only available for purchasing a rebol/pro licence and only on windows os.

So in one hand you have that slogan "it's the same everywhere and it is simple" and when you dig you see that the "commercial" part with the most interresting bits are only available for MS windows and that doing a dialect is not that simple. Very few people really get there way around parse freely. And the documentations on parse topic are close to the emptyness.

rebol for linux and macos x are presented as courtesy of Carl out of his amazing generosity ... you can conclude he don't plan to make money around the rebol on those OS...

rebol was supposed to revolution the software industry showing that a all in one small any purpose tool box was possible to do.

well people saw that rebol had way too much limitations that systematically reinventing the wheel was not the way they want to go. So they choosed to invest their time and efforts in programming solutions worst the effort, call it python, call it ruby, call it lua, call it .NET/mono, call it java etc...

On the past decade while those language were growing rebol was forcebly push toward till it's author finally decide he had better things to do elsewhere.

shadwolf
3-Oct-2011 1:05:40
I more I think the topic and more I see that all the things I liked in rebol where it's downfall...

For example I like parse; but I never was able to out of the blue come with mental strategies all set up to make high advanced parse rules. To me writing from scratch something like MakeDoc is impossible. Or at least it will not be as performant as Carl who completly handle and understand parse would do.

I like the variable system untyped and size flexible. But then understanding the pointer concept is impossible to me... I have a very good example in mind of that when I was developing with steeve I couldn't understand how little ram was used with the steeve's parsing compared to mine ... it was due to pointer to lines. I was atomising the lines of the documents and storing them to a block copying them while Steeve way was to copy the referense to those line and store them in a block to access them later reducing the amount of memory used grately. That isn't an easy to handle concept and I'm sure most of the readers of this post will not understand at all what I'm talking about. That kind of data structure made complicated the interface to external dll and the extension of rebol could be made.

if you look lua python ruby they all have that in common that they can interface pretty easyly with external libraries. and that the benefits brought by using those languages to interface to an external C library don't disapear... Ok here is the core thing ... When you code in rebol you are used to have a really powerfull line of code wich can mix several commands and several arguments on it. When you interface rebol2 with a C dll you then have to write a bridge betwin the dll and the C code in order to use that dll the most Rebol likish way in your utility scripts. but the bridge is then a REBOL C like way you have all the inconvenient of the C code and you loose all the advantages that gives you rebol... With lua or python which are crafted around other gains more subtile ( no using { and ; for python for example) and since there syntax is already C-likised then when interfacing with C dll those advantagise don't disapear when using those languages.

I like VID wich is based on htlm without being as "complete" for example try to draw in rebol a table as sofisticated than the one you can find in any phpbb index.php page you know thos tables with text image outlines no outilines dates of last topic etc... this is easy to do in HTML in rebol it's a pain up the ass while the core idea happend to be the same... But then the set of widgets available by default in VID even if they have the same namings appears to be way more limited than the set of widget in HTML. None the less I like VID and I think it just missing this final touch that makes it as flexible and usefull as html is... it's not a random thing that most of the now in days interface are web interface ajax based...

-pekr-
3-Oct-2011 1:37:04
Salim: wow, what a great comment. I could not put it better. You know, Shadwolf is right in many aspects, but he is bitter by the situation noone of us can influence. I was bitter too, unless REBOL has fallen into irrelevancy (in my book), when considering big business.

I know what "big blue" means :-) In the company I worked for, we were IBM shop (HW, Lotus Notes), whereas nowadays we are MS shop (SQL, SharePoint), both companies do use SAP. The former company was 10K eployees iron & still works, 3K PCs. And languages used in both? ABAP, then environment related languages - Lotus Script, C#. Maybe Delphi. But as for others and really popular ones - php, python, perl, curl, ruby - I found out, that if those were ever used, it belonged into personal programmer's preference/usage, not officially endorsed though ...

Luis.
5-Oct-2011 2:17:43
The fact that Mr Sassenrath has kept silent and not responded _at all_ to these concerns in public speaks volumes.

Cheers,

Luis.

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 0:31:21
pekkr stop being a troll and produce code that will help rma r3gui to be more than a sad joke... the guy that should be banned from altme is you pekr cause you are nothing more than a nocive guy.
shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 0:39:36
you acknoledge me pekr ??? so why you asked for my banning like all the bichies in RMA that negate their faillure ????

Perk problem is rma sucks it was based on bounty hunting they received in 2010 somemoney they claimed to be code wizards and they produced nothing ... there is not even a proper documentation for their library to start with ...

I grew tired of this constant worshiping you pekr and your kind display so aboundently ... Carl is your God well face it Carl is gone since a year he didn t produce a damn thing and rebol 3 is still in alpha...

and this whole situation is the worst case scenario instead of having the rebol community lobbying for carl to come back to reality you just moved to red until carl give you some sign of life cause you have nothing else to do ...

Sorry I m a reboler I don t want an alpha stamped rebol with a rma r3gui that suck I don't want a rebol2 stamped full of bug and deprecated I don t want yet another faillure clone of rebol ... and yes red will never have my suppport it s alot of work made for nothing since it lacks the main rebol technology parse ...

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 0:44:29
I never tool any clone of rebol seriously cause they all lack the rebol main point parse!!!!

Parse is rebol main core technology thank to parse we have amazing things like VID, MakeDoc, Cheyenne, area-tc!!

All the clones of rebole lack that essential part so their are not worth mentioning do I made myself clear ?

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 0:54:47
Rebol is a faillure because it's not an everydays work... It's not the soul and heart of carl and that s why he can abandone it like he did ...

Rebol is fantastic but carl sucks at selling it ... and 6 year to still have a rebol 3 alpha where all the rebol community asked was some bug fix and improvement to rebol 2 sucks ... Carl was the one basing his rebol webrowser plugin on IE... We all said by that time it was a mistake and that he should go for a firefox plugin ... did carl listen to us ? no ... ofcourse he did the easyiest thing to do he abandonned the idea of having a rebol webrowser plugin and moved to the next idea ... rebservice whiche he abandone too to move to the next idea rebcode which he abandonned to move to the next idea rebol 3 which after 6 years in alphe not only is abandonned but lacks everything that made rebol2 famous !!!

I'm stupid all you want but if even I being that crap notice that it means rebol is dead ...

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 1:30:01
pekr never forget you said this :

Pekr 2-Oct [7280] I can still get hard crasches of R3, in various phases:

do %r3-gui.r3 do %examples/run-layouts.r3

Two times I got a crash, when just closing the windows, and when at layout #15, clicking in the form. Once I got it with layout #20, and once at layout #27, clicking the big red button ...

.. In short RMA r3 gui sucks...

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 1:34:53
AND CYPHRE REPLY TO THAT:

Cyphre 3-Oct [7284] Pekr, the 'hard crashes' are most probably related to one bug that is waiting on Carl to trace/fix since it looks we are not able to do it from the host-kit side. ---------- PEKR YOU SHOULD DO WHAT I DID RECALL THEM ASHLEY ON IT S OWN ALONE DID BETTER IN 3 MONTH THAN THEY DID IN 1 YEAR AND GETTING PAID FOR IT ! CAUSE ALL THIS RMA STUFF STARTED WITH CYPHRE AND ROBERT MUENCH GETTING MONEY OUT OF REBOLERS BELIEVERS AND NAIVE ... THIS IS SCAM ROBERY THIEF ETC...

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 1:39:54
pekr so in short you claim that rma work sucks and instead of having rma humbly saying sorry we will fixe it out of a year of developement cyphre comes with a cheap excuse sorry it's Carl's host kit fault !!! and you pekr buy that ?! I mean pekr to what point will you be treated as a stupid imbecil guy ?

At my expense pekr I stoped buying anything carl and rma tell me in april 2010 :P ... and as a result I got myself banned for asking the things you comme with in octobre 2011 ...

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 1:43:29
the difference betwin you and me is that I'm not shy of telling what I honnestly think ... like it or not ...

I know truth can be hard ... but rma never tryed to rely on the community to start with they receive thousands of message of sugestion an bug track and followed none so yes at some point its your responsability to tell them they suck....

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 1:55:04
pekr can you really put on same page HTC sense or linux mint with rma's r3gui aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahhaahaha

OMG! god bless reichart for banning me from altme cause I would go all out in rma's face full force...

Claude is such a gentle guy he thanks rma for releasing for the 10th time the same thing :¨)

sorry I laugh too much ... my belly hurts...

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 2:27:06
Robert 8-Oct [7297x2:last] Is anyone willing to try to develop a tree style? We don't have it on our plan at the moment, but it's a fundamental style so this would fit good with the styles we do.

---

after a year finally robert ask for help to do a treeview this is pathetic .... P A T H E T I C ...

my ask to him is how much you mister all mighty guru will pay me for this ... and a treeview is 3 hours of my work ... nothing less nothing less ... if you don t believeme try me ... by my price would be such you can pay robert muench ...

shadwolf
9-Oct-2011 2:32:10
so slowly you understand that the host kit is a trap set up by carl to show you how pathetic you are ...

and a treeview if this is 3 hours of my time and effort it is 10 minutes of work from cyphre ...

This is truth nothing but raw truth ... now you can turn your eyes away from truth ... but this will not change truth ...

blame yourself you have killed in me all the generosity and naivety I had ...

-pekr-
9-Oct-2011 7:59:40
Shadwolf - you should be really more carefull in what you write. Anyone sane reading your comments will clearly see, what's your main problem. Do me a favor and stop questioning me or my capabilities or the lack of. You suffer a typical coder syndrome not realising one thing - I don't need to write a single line of code to be any useful fo MY projects.

Shadwolf - you act like you are any different to any single reboller out there. We all are sorry for R3 not being developed any further, not knowing what will happen in regards to R3 in future. So WHAT do you exactly suggest? To abandon REBOL? Great - what's next? I really wonder - if you can see no future with REBOL, why do you still care to comment here?

And as for Robert - instead of threatening RMA here, which business wise, does rather well imo,why don't you offer your programming skills to him, instead of posting stupind comments like you do here?

And please try to comment in more civilised way ...

Carl Read
11-Oct-2011 15:46:14
For those who haven't noticed, the following's been recently updated (8-Oct-2011)...

http://www.rebol.com/docs/expert-intro.html

And it's linked to on the rebol.com front page, but how new that is I don't know.

So, a little bit of activity...

George
13-Oct-2011 3:22:01
George.

Hi as a newbie, I find this all very interesting!

The list of things I need to know is ENDLESS!!!

to do anything!

SQL, XML, HTML, CSS, Python, ruby, Java, C#, Asp.net, silverlight....

etc,etc,etc....

Here is my True Dream.

I wish I could make something pretty, a web application. Something that uses a database if need be. In ONE thing, one thing only.

Without having to learn A HUNDRED different languages, protocols, etc.

Then all I had to do was HIT PUBLISH and it would work : no matter the operating system, no matter the web browser. A smart phone, A mac, A PC, A linux, no matter the country.

It would upload to a server and be live(on a web address I choose)

You know what I would love even more. If the users of my application, didn't have to RUN or INSTALL anything either.

All they had to do, as simple as opening a web browser, go to the site, no matter how they access it,

And play with my App. Free trial. Pay $2.00 (all taken care of in my all in one development environment)

I'd get paid. The Integrated development environment people get PAID (10% of every app/website/WHATEVER the Future holds/ sale). Everybody WINS!!!! All the work would be done on The ONE INTEGRATED THING.

Simple for me : Designer, Imagineer of cool things.

Simple for the user: Find and Play. Share with friends(facebook, twitter, stumble, Youtube, etc)

There is a reason these things are so successful! Easy to share and use!!!

Now I'm learning how to use Microsoft Expression Designer,

BUT you know what BUGS me, (it has REALLY COOL, no limit on what you can design, imagine and DO!) It really, really sucks that the user has to have SILVERLIGHT! (Feels ultra limiting!)

BUT I'm committed to learning to design and code in it. BECAUSE it make websites, phone apps, games,

In an EASY to USE VISUAL, drag and drop, point, click draw, import pics, environment! (it just sucks that its limited to one environment - unless, Apple decides to be friends with Microsoft)

I've had a look at Drupal(tutorials suck) W3 schools(soooo many things to learn) and I got microsoft Expression as part of my C# course at schoool.

Visual studio 2010, has an intellisense thing, lets you know when to use a word, 1000's of things....but seems to me unnecessarily COMPLEX!

All I want to do is manipulate data, have users enter some speech to text, return an answer, have users create their own custom tables, voting....BUT i wish, i didn't have to do the work 10 times (for each browser,Operating System, SmartPhone device).

I wish that Rebol or Red could solve this problem!!!

I may be the only person hoping for a SIMPLE & EASY to USE, Elegant VISUAL solution (with simple, easy to use(never have to learn another programming language -code). BUT I don't think so.

You would get every new person looking(like me) trying to do something ONCE and ONCE only, the SIMPLE, EASY, ELEGANT, BEAUTIFUL Way, you would own the future.

My thing, is that the rebol site(not the language) LOOKS ugly, not clear or easy to navigate, like the W3 Site, (which has clear flow, and Learn this, than this) I think because the learning page I went to was ALL ON ONE PAGE!

I'll finish now, these are just design things (which if you think about the success of apple!) are quite important for attracting designers, web/App designers to embrace a ALL IN ONE SOLUTION! To a world of increasingly, distressingly, too many OPTIONS!

sincerly, George (from NZ...dont know if that makes a difference or not =D)

claude
13-Oct-2011 3:27:02
welcome back, perhaps you will do something to finish R3 :

* bugs example(Cyphre 3-Oct [7284] Pekr, the 'hard crashes' are most probably related to one bug that is waiting on Carl to trace/fix since it looks we are not able to do it from the host-kit side.);

* gui-lib for linux & osx;

* and more news on rebol.com ;-)

Shadwolf
13-Oct-2011 18:06:17
(at)claude CArl isn't back he posted a 10 lines documentation and a copie past of what was the rebol dictionary intro...

I want a true doc something that makes pekr's rebol level rise up. Something like let's explain to a donkey how to do a dialect or how to use smoothly Parse.

What are the plans for rebol Carl has ? Why rebol 3 is still in alpha and still not the base of RT commercial activity ?

(at)pekr: you use other people ... you are unable to wipe your ass by yourself so what? problem is it seems you are cocky enough to pick on new commers. like you displayed here.

The one starting to pick on other people was you pekr... don't invert the roles.

"And as for Robert - instead of threatening RMA here, which business wise, does rather well imo,why don't you offer your programming skills to him, instead of posting stupind comments like you do here? "

you have nothing else to propose than that ? First believe it or not I have a job so my time is limited. Second RMA auto selected themselves auto claimed they where code wizards and pushed away everyone. When I asked questions about the progress of r3gui I was pushed aside insulted etc... and now you do like it never happends. Second the people that made me banned from altme are rma lazy team.

RMA do well in their business ? prouve it once again you give statement with no prouve to show ...

I can prouve that rma produced nothing more than what carl did two years ago. They have no ideas no plans no volunty but they are in charge of most important project for rebol3 (in my opinion)

Last point R3Gui was a bounty hunter based project RMA received money for it and never guived any count about that ... This is the display of professional code wizard ? I should do what they don't to patch their lacks ? and for free ? sorry RMA introduced money in bounty in this community so it's normal to remunerate participants.

And in first place those autosufisant selfproclaimed code wizard never asked for any help. So now pekr with your lies go waste someonelse's air.

RMA though they will hide their nullity by banning the only guy poking them since all the other are like you pekr spectators that are too affraid to say the truth.

I don't want to make r3gui rma a great thing to allow them to use that to show the world how great they are since it would be my doing not theirs ...

r3gui is nowhere to be done.... And pekr in case you didn't noticed I retired from rebol coding activities this means no more me doing code for rebol for free... and no more collaborations with people like you unable to drive a project to its end...

(at)george: sorry dude web is a patchworked sums of different technologies and rebol will not help you...

rebol 2 is full of bug and abandonned since 6 years to allow carl focus his full effort on rebol3.

rebol3 is in alpha and lacks everything.

and rebol or not you will not abstrat yourself enough to not learn to use HTML, javascript, SQL etc..

Last point ... rebol community is to small to give valuable information... yes we have cheyenne! but who has a OS commerce like website with thousand of clients per day made in full rebol using cheyenne! ?

noone...

pekr will lie to you saying that RMA for example do profitable business based on rebol, But when you will ask for details you will face silence or insults...

-pekr-
13-Oct-2011 18:33:40
Shadwolf - your programmer's brain is clearly not able to understand there are various roles to any project. I never ever used anyone, am regular customer of RT (IOS, SDK,Command, Pro, on Linux and Windows, for two companies, high enough private donation to one project). So as a programmer - are you misusing your management? You clearly do, doing no management work. That's how your imagination works?

And be sure I will pick on anyone, using what I consider being incorrect arguments. Newcomer or old regular user, as you, if I can see, that you talk nonsense.

Oh, so our good old shadwolf, which is able to code tree-view in 3 hours, suddenly finds out, that he is busy with his main job? Great, so now we know.

You are so inaccurate in so many aspects, that it even stops being funny. In fact - you are unable to provide any deeper knowledge to any situation, REBOL related.

Stop threating RMA - they never ever used any bounty money, as a company. And their business is not REBOL related, they just use REBOL based tools to do their business, and they offer some of their work back to the community. Doing R3 GUI is not their priority, unless they need it for one of their tools.

And shadwolf - don't worry. Anyone sane can judge the situation - just sit down, scroll up, and read all your hysterical posts here - nothing more to say ...

Carl Read
13-Oct-2011 21:27:01
(at) George...

The REBOL browser plugin almost promised to do what you want - except for the plugin bit. And the never getting it to work properly on all browsers bit, never mind phones and things.

Then again, with you being in NZ, maybe you should look closer to home...

http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/

(Note: Held together with number 8 wire;)

George
18-Oct-2011 16:39:42
Thanks Carl! appreciate it.

Thanks for the link too! I think this is what I've been looking for!! (almost)

sincerely, George.

Luis.
24-Oct-2011 7:13:34
Maybe he's been moonlighting here... AmigaOS netbook in the works (http://liliputing.com/2011/10/amigaos-netbook-in-the-works.html).

Cheers,

Luis.

Luis.
27-Oct-2011 1:26:40
Funny really, looks like us 'hangers-on' posting here appear to have more hope for Rebol than its creator.

Not one single post here to appease the masses. Not one.

Cheers,

Luis.

Jaymer
27-Oct-2011 19:35:54
ok, just wasted 45 mins reading this crap.

1) always wondered what happened to APL. Used it in 1981, 370 CMS. Even on a decwriter. Just never had a reason to mess with matrices much.

2) thanks for the tip on "iO" - might be worth checking out

3) Luis - keeps hitting the mark - no post(s) from Carl - thats just stupid.

4) the pissing contest(s) just keep wasting the time of readers. wish we could purge a lot of those posts.

5) Used Rebol 2-3 years ago - did some simple scripting stuff, but it wasn't something I could rely on. funny to see now that I haven't actually missed anything in the last 2 years.

Brian Tiffin
28-Oct-2011 15:21:21
Jaymer; Ken Iverson recently released J as open source. APL for the hobbyist without the funky hieroglyphics. He's with JSoftware now. And it has been integrated in OpenCOBOL as an experiment that went smoother than expected.

On point 5; On the surface, no, no you didn't miss much. Under the covers though, there has been a fair to middling amount of REBOL going on. It would be nice to get the under the covers out in the open more, but the Darknet is what it is; blindingly dark. And just like most faith-based belief systems; you believe or you don't. I'm holding on to the faith and do plan on ensuring the community still gets a chance to vote on the REBOL of the Year 2011.

shadwolf
2-Nov-2011 2:11:24
pekr the one histerical here is you and you lie and change views so much and so often ....

pekr you said that too :

9472 Pekr I don't compare him to R3, I am comparing him to Doc, and his aproach. And I can see the difference (for myself, of course). And RED is open-source language too ... Anyway - I abandoned R3.I am waiting for Carl to announce R4 :-) 6-Sep 14:11 9471 Kaj It's true that Karl is not very proactive, but you have to ask yourself who the needy one is here. Open source has all they want, Karl has his own language he wanted; the REBOL community is the needy one without a language 6-Sep 13:03 9470 Kaj Ah, so why does the open source world think nothing is going on with REBOL? Because we organised a conference without inviting them 6-Sep 13:01 9469 Pekr No, I deny his work with the community, that is all. Imight set-up REBOL conference, and invite no-one, just do some infrastructure, web-presentation, etc., not talk to ppl, and wonder, why noone is attending ... I never felt enough "marketing" is surrounding Orca or Boron.

And yes, open-source world is ignoring REBOL clones, maybe because 1) they think that there is very few ppl involved anyway 2) because they might feel that anything REBOL related is doomed, not enough popular, etc. 3) because REBOL syntax and functional languages do not attract many, and they hardly become mainstream ... 4) because world is moving towards - do-everything-in-JS+HTML+CSS 6-Sep 12:59 9468 Kaj Conversely, the open source scene is ignoring REBOL, and sadly that includes clones, so Karl fell between a rock and a hard place 6-Sep 12:54 9467 Kaj And you deny that REBOL people are ignoring him? 6-Sep 12:51 9466 Pekr you see - I even don't know, who's the Boron's author ...

The only important guy in any software developement is the guy writing the code... this is why rebol is in actual iatus.

And you ahave no credibility talking about things you don't even know about. And sorry but RMA was presented to me as bounty based by none other than Robert Munch during summer 2009 don't force me to dig up my altme archives and to put that too in your face pekr...

shadwolf
2-Nov-2011 2:18:02
jaymer to your 4 and 5 ... yes and and the answer to the simplicity is the simpliest thing to do is to do nothing :)

You know rebol community is a real closed and small world and this is one of the very fiew (unfiltred) communication ways rebol has with the outside...

Like you said in 2 year nothing changed .... january 2011 Rebol 2 update was unoticed rebol3 host kit was unoticed too and R3/GUI RMA is irrelevant...

Shadwolf
2-Nov-2011 2:40:28
Pekr sid: Doing R3 GUI is not their priority, unless they need it for one of their tools.

whahahahahahah

Once again you say I threat RMA with words but read their website dude ... They presents themselves as code wizards this is not an insult... And saying that for code wizards they shown really few progress on a very crucial topic for R3 and rebol in general is not insulting them it's the truth. Now RMA considere r3gui not as their priority but still they base their professional credibility on handeling that project.

And you can not say that R3GUI is driven a professionalist way.

and for you statement as anyone sane blah blah blah I'm insane but I still produce more interesting code you and RMA will in your whole lifes... Last time Cyphre code interrested me it was the translucent demo of menu he made in 2004 as a preview technical show room for VID/AGG ... and since then what he did ? well ... I let the people sane juge. OOOOOOOH they already did judge massively rebol "It's not worth any bit of their time :P"

Problem with internet is that it was made to share though and exchange ideas and now it turned into "look at what I do how great I'n congratulate me or you are a troll"

So I'm a troll but saying that and banning me from altme don't make carl read altme or here ... In fact for altme carl stoped 5 years ago to use it and he even invented a side world for allowing the gurus to talk about rebol futur betwin themselves without being distrubed by people like shadwolf. And that wasn't enough he created and integrated a chat system in r3. Al of those he stoped using gradualy. Till he completly stoped any communication and went in autist mode and only selected 2 or 3 people to talk with about irrelevant things like the color of the sky ...

Any one sane like you say pekr seeing 185 post on his blog would drop by and read it and do an overall news replying globably.

but as stated befor the answer to simplicity paradigm is " the simpliest thing to do is to do nothing"

-pekr-
2-Nov-2011 9:34:31
Shadwolf - if you can't read between the lines, you might as well stop replying to my posts constantly questioning me. I don't care, how much code do you write - it is absolutly irrelevant for me - I do other stuff in my living, and - I am not a programmer.

REBOL is in limbo nowadays mainly because of Carl. First - ppl need to be motivated by the guru, second - both R2 and R3 are still closed source, although in R3 the situation is a bit better due to extension mechanism. Don't ask me, why noone is writing any extensions anymore - maybe because ppl are not feeling safe about the REBOL anymore.

I might have one simple question for you - what do YOU think should happen, in order to cure the situation? And if you propose something, do you REALLY think, it is going to work? Because I can't see any simple solution, untill Carl is back. And - if you think, there is NO solution to REBOL situation, why are you still here? ...

GregP
8-Nov-2011 1:33:20
When I started using R2, I loved the fact that it had an integrated graphic capability as well as networking as well as running the same (or near) on many OSes. Slowly we had less OSes available for R2, and very little updates. So anyway, I know I can still do a lot of things I didn't yet do with my R2 SDK. But on R3, I'm not about to write C code to get a UI or any extension. One of the big reason I chose REBOL when I started was because I knew I will not have the time to write extensions. I was just checking at which packages are available for what, and in case of REBOL all was ready to use. In addition, I became addicted to REBOL language itself. Just to tell my story.
drebol/inetw3
8-Nov-2011 18:50:38
(pekr-) What do I think should happen?

Create a local browsing client server that reads html/css. Message with anything, anywhere and dump it in the networks available interface(the browser!).

The browser is not the web browser. Although it will show markup languange. The xhtml/css will be written as html/css in rebol that will present itself in VID, web browsers and anything else that does markup. The browser is REBOL. A compilabel rebol EXE. that act as a server,DB, and multi-dialcet with parsers.

Relative expressed *Basic* object language:

Write it once and run it anywhere. And let the other programs build and present it.

To me this is what i want to (markup in = Dialect in). A REBOL markup/dialect: basic way to use hashes.. lists.. arrays.. string-splits.. series.. key-values.. dictionary.. objects.. blocks.. variable-values.. picks,pokes,stacks,ifs,switch,case,loops,find,read,write,post,get, and other simple functions you find in all programing languages.

You write this simple markup/dialect once. Compile it. And run it from your desktop or on another server that reads/load/host/serves data. If the data.. (all programming languages become data)is newlisp,python,javascript,lua,vbscript-jscript,WSH,html,C/C++,java,Opa,haxe,RED,Boron,etc.. the REBOL/server EXE. passes its code/data to the language as a markup/dialect of (Relative Expressed Basic Object Language) and the data language takes it in and runs it as its own. The rebol language passes a REBOL markup/dialect: to any data thats written once and runs anywhere. Beause its just the data hashes.. lists.. arrays.. string-splits.. series.. key-values.. etc. parsed and formatted to run with other programing languages. No more Rebol trying to become a killer App.

Just doing what it was ment to do. Be the messaging language for anything on or off a network. This is not as hard as it seems. And with Rebol it's a lot simpler to parse anything and mimic Opa,Tclkit,Starkit, a Data/Html compiler,a browser, and javascript.

Every ones built these pieces allready we just need a standard way of doing it. Rebol3 is trying to do all this by compiling everything inward (run from Core/View).

I say stop.. too much.. not simple.., push the Relative Expressed Basic Object Language out and let the other crazy packages do it. Id rather program in a simple markup/dialect running from rebol. Just thinking out loud guys and girls.

shadwolf
10-Nov-2011 2:24:45
pekr don't make me laugh please... we are exactly in the situation anticipated more than a decades ago when we said to carl that him driving a project as complex and difficult would be his down fall.

Now what reasonable people would do is to move on pekr forget about rebol like carl did and don't use anymore altme or this blog cause it is irrelevant...

pekr you are against freedom. But you aprentice dictator let me tell you it will be more difficult to ban me from here than it was from your close egotripping altme world.

oh and pekr past month on altme robert announced that he had better things to do that publishing r3gui updates but that he is still interressed in it ... this remembers me vaguely something ... and this is what 1 year of developpement lead us.

I really hope red will be the turn around even if I see alot of discussions around it and not so much contributions.

Pekr the only way to have something in computing is by coding. R3GUI proves this rebol3 too...

shadwolf
10-Nov-2011 2:29:16
(at)Pekr rebol is dead ... I will not loose time in trying to save something long dead... R3 was a reboot hope, it was really badly driven and in the end we have nothing.

apparently people are still not quite convinced that rebol is dead but it is.

-pekr-
10-Nov-2011 3:18:02
Shadwolf - if you would communicate in a more civilised way, the whole communication would be surely more worthy. As for me being against the freedom - your claim does not hold any water, as I both publicly and privately asked Carl to fully open-source R3. How many times did you try the same? My only limitation to the freedom is - I only support BSD, MIT etc. licenses, not GPL, which imo in fact limits the freedom of one's choice. But - that's just my personal choice, not a general truth.

REBOL might be dead. Carl is still not available and it is some 13 months of almost zero activity towards R3 on his side. The worst part is, that he choosed absolutly worst kind of communication - no communication. It will be imo tough for him, to win ppl's confidence back. If Carl pops-up next week - will you rejoin his efforts? That's just rhetoric question ...

I have signals here or there, that Carl is still willing to continue development of R3. Recently on Facebook Bo said, that Carl worked on R3 some bits. But - that's all not enough imo.

So, in the meantime of doing some other business, I support RED. And if R3 comes back,I might support even R3 - I am open to anything REBOL related, as far as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But for now - R3 is in a clinical death for me, and I am not sure resurrection is going to be succesfull, if it will not come soon enough ...

looking for reasons
20-Nov-2011 0:04:54
shadwolf, eat your heart out. Look like what your getting at is the same thing that got to Carl. He could not deal with a good thing slowly dying so he chose to get out IN THE END and move on.

The real question is why would he treat us like they treated him if he knew it really hurt (losing the Dream) that bad. Carl Sassenrath Quits, Flames VIScorp

From: Carl Sassenrath Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: From Carl Sassenrath Date: 13 Nov 1996 19:50:02 GMT Organization: Pacific Internet Lines: 99 Message-ID: <56d8pa$i5e(at)north.pacific.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ts3-200.pacific.net

Dear Amigans,

Many of you have been wondering what's happening with VIScorp, the Amiga, and why my name is no longer on the vistv web site.

I hope this is not too long-winded for you, but here is a brief summary of my story: I joined VIScorp about a year ago as a consultant to help them create new system software for the Amiga. I believed at that time that they had the ability to take the Amiga into several new, huge markets around the world. They made many promises to me in order to get me to join the project. In March 1996 VIScorp informed me that they planned to buy Amiga Technologies. The reason was simple: for the vast quantities of Amigas that they planned, it was cheaper to buy AT then to pay the royalty. It seemed to me that this could work, if they could come up with the money. Over the months that followed, I made numerous suggestions to VIScorp regarding what they needed to do to support and further improve the Amiga. I even proposed a business plan centered around the Amiga, as it seemed to me that you CAN have an ALTERNATE computer for people who don't want PCs. After all, what would our cars be like if only one company produced them? The Amiga offered us a choice. VIScorp never responded to my suggestions. Not once. In fact, they kept me totally in the dark as to what they were doing and what progress had been made on the AT deal. I never knew from day to day what was going to happen next. By August I was starting to tire of VIScorp and its unkept promises to all of us. They were 110 days behind in paying me, and I was very disappointed in the whole mess that they had brought on the Amiga community, developers and dealers, and myself. It had become clear to me that VIScorp was not competent. I took a couple weeks off and went to Florida. In September I tried to recruit RJ Mical to join the team. I put a lot of energy into it, as RJ was skeptical of VIScorp. I finally succeeded! Then, VIScorp blew him off. RJ and I couldn't believe it. What were they doing? Finally, I decided to focus 100% on what they had originally hired me for: to create a TV set-top Amiga. Perhaps if we could build a good demo, VIScorp could convince one of its investors to contribute extra cash. By the end of September, Don, Steve, Jim, and I had finished a dazzling prototype of such an STB. In my opinion, it really showed off what the Amiga could do as a STB. The software for it was entirely written by Jim and I, because VIScorp had not been paying any of the other contractors.

looking for reasons
20-Nov-2011 0:10
After delivering the prototype, I never heard a word back. VIScorp was again far behind in payments. What were they doing? ****What had gone wrong? What was next? Whatever it was, I didn't want to be part of it any longer. I've never seen such an idiotic, screwed-up, incompetent company (and I am saying it mildly)****. VIScorp was worse than Commodore, and I never thought that was possible. I took my name off the web site, vowing not to be a part of this lunacy.

So what can I say? Please don't flame me for doing this. I refuse to be part of such a sloppy situation, regardless of my love for the Amiga. Over the last 10 months I have heard from many of you, and have sent nearly 1500 personal email replies to you. All I can say is that I am sorry that I could not do more for you and our Amiga Computer.

I am unsure what the future holds for the Amiga. Perhaps VIScorp or some other company will scrape together enough cash to make the AT purchase. We can only hope.

As for my future, I am going to return to what I do best: operating systems and languages. You have not heard the last from me. I can imagine a system much better than the Amiga.... now to create it. Truely, only time will tell.

Stay in touch my friends.

Sincerely yours,

Carl Sassenrath Ex-VIScorp OS Guy carl(at)sassenrath.com

Permission granted to copy and repost.

those ****** tells me something why carl's heart is not in putting together a rebol business plan. He really wants nothing more than to create the best software/hardware he can and enjoy it. enjoy that it was possible. What people thought wasn't possible (amiga and viscorp). And this is why rebol gets a bad rep.

No one out there who is in the business world starting in California, Silicon valley is going to play nice. they believe in BUSINESS FIRST. REBOL is not dead. When people get hurt, only do they fight back against the system with passion. They die, but they create hope of simplicity for another generation to come. Rebol will out live us all.

Bert
6-Dec-2011 16:39:17
Rebol will out live us all. Its just too good. Eventually, the hype and crass apps will fade away like chaff in the wind, but Rebol will be there.

Support Rebol by working with R2, which should have been kept alive anyway, regardless of R3.

Its as alive as you want it to be.

-pekr-
7-Dec-2011 2:58:34
In the meantime, another REBOL clone appeared, called the World language, done by the long community member John Niclasen aka Geomol :-)

http://world-lang.org/

garnet robbie
14-Dec-2011 23:17:19
Clear abstraction: smart, well-drawn layers of "knowledge focus" that allow hiding of details. Clean expression:meaningful, concise but not cryptic, representation and communication of concepts.

.... besides describing how to get something done the right way, also makes good advice for anyone considering making a comment, or expressing an opinion.

While Carl Sassenrath calls it a definition of simple, I think it would just as well describe integrity. And while so many people seem to be content with ignoring (ie ignorant of) the value of integrity, its refreshing to see people (and a language) who aren't.

-pekr-
15-Dec-2011 1:39:06
Ha, 200th post, what do I win? :-)
Paul
15-Dec-2011 10:59:08
Pekr- you win the next version of REBOL.
-pekr-
15-Dec-2011 12:09:27
The next version of REBOL is most probably called RED, or World :-)
Jason Cunliffe
15-Dec-2011 20:21:17
Greetings

... LOTS of cool interesting language development happening now all around very good times we are entering And if Rebol 2 or R3 landed tomorrow, it would be welcomed by a world hungry and ready for such cool deep language design-philosphy.

So I recommend you check these out:

Alan Kay :: Programming and Scaling << video [57mins] see: tele-task.de/archive/video/flash/14029/

CoffeeScript [Jeremy Askenas] see: jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/ & watch video presentation at JSConf2011 blip.tv/jsconf/jsconf2011-jeremy-ashkenas-5258082

FACTOR [Steve PESTOV] http://factorcode.org/ he gave a terrific google tech talk Oct, 2008 youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g

Douglas CROCKFORD http://yuiblog.com/crockford/ history of javascript Volume 1: The Early Years {makes interesting mention of REBOL}

I really hope you enjoy the above!

best wishes Jason

xRatio
3-Jan-2012 15:25:03
(at)all

I was really trying and using parts of REBOL 2 in my commercial C-application several years. Worked quite fine so far.

When I saw the abrupt change to REBOL 3 with its "object-orientated" programming I stopped using REBOL.

Generally: I am not using "object-orientation" at all. The underlying concept is logically wrong. Bloody beginners like such a nonsens, of course.

Cannot understand at all, that a genius like Carl Sassenrath got lost this way.

Carl Read
3-Jan-2012 22:58:43
REBOL 3 is more object-orientated than REBOL 2? This is the first I've heard this, but then I've not really followed the details of R3. Maybe xRatio is mistaking R3's extensible platform approach for object-orientated?
drebol/inetw3
4-Jan-2012 1:25:59
Does anyone know how to contact or have been contacted about Carls position for supporting Rebol 2.* and/or Rebol3GUI any further? I would like to know if R3 will be as complete as R2 or are we suppose to do that our selves with the sdk. If we create Rebol exe.s' that are better than r2/r3 how do we market it when its derived from rebol/core?

Say for instance if i want to make the parse dialect a stand alone cross platform app, can i do that legally?

Can i create reXML, the rebol language written in ECMAscript and still call reXML mine when its a copy of the rebol language running in web software?

Are there any limitations that makes R3 not ready for use right now as beta ware? really bad bugs maybe?

How do we get the plug-in code to improve it for all browsers? what platforms are we limited to with the latest r2.7 and r3?

Ill stayed tuned for these questions answered and more hopefully from some one out there in rebol land.

And just how do we go about getting help with coding, i mean where should we post our questions? For some reason i cant get on Altme. Whats' up Carl Sassenrath? Are you still in or are you contemplating that the language from your pov is complete and were free to use it how ever?

-pekr-
4-Jan-2012 10:57:50
xRatio - in what extent is R3 more object oriented than R2 is? It is just the same. What is added is module system you don't have to use, or extensions. R3 is more modular, not object oriented.

drebol - Carl is mostly silent since 10/2010 with no single world of what he envisions next for REBOL. What we know is, that he is still interested to take R3 further, but it is all just words, if no action follows on his part.

I hope in half a year, we will see first alpha of RED language. But that will most probably miss View, and some cool R3 concepts as devices, etc.

Bill
19-Jan-2012 14:39:40
Kind of on auto pilot this site.

What about getting a group together to get the keys to this and keep it alive?

drebol/inetw3
19-Jan-2012 20:31:55
Good thought Bill. That would be welcoming. I like ML and posts because it's open to all. But it seems we need a moderator or else have everyone register once before they post online.

Or comment posts could be added to Rebol.org

drebol/inetw3
19-Jan-2012 20:40:28
Is the Rebol core complete (rebol3) as far as it's goes by Carls' standards? Is he leaving it up to others to complete or debug it through non standard code or what? Ok, its' a new year! Could you talk to us Carl please about your ideas?
Paul
20-Jan-2012 9:47:50
Bill, it isn't worth it at this point. I suggest you follow up with red-lang.org and world-lang.org
Steven White
20-Jan-2012 18:07:03
Do we think that Carl has given up, or burned out, or is there any hope that he has gone into his cave and will emerge soon with the core of R3 done to his liking? Is it really all over?
-pekr-
20-Jan-2012 23:45:12
Steven - Carl has some non Rebol related job IIRC (one well recognised company). He would like to see R3 proceed, but that is that - a wish. To make wish closer to reality, there are some talks ongoing between RMA (Saphirion), and Carl, so that e.g. Saphirion could continue even with Core development = having access to R3 sources. We will see, how it goes. I would too, suggest to support Red language in the meantime, and further on - a good project ...
Henrik
21-Jan-2012 2:12:18
Saphirion last talked to Carl around January 8th 2012 (don't remember the exact date), but as Pekr mentions, we'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, keep a good eye on red-lang.org and world-lang.org.
Nicolas F.
22-Jan-2012 7:45:45
Is RMA/Saphirion still working on the new VID? The seems to be just as quiet as Carl.
Henrik
23-Jan-2012 5:14:21
Nicholas,

We are nearing the point where we can't do much more on the new GUI, without fixes from Carl, but work continues on it for specific application development for an inventory system.

It also still needs a proper skin and some more styles, but that is not going to happen for quite some time, as I need to finish another large project first that is done in R2.

-pekr-
27-Jan-2012 22:31:14
Shadwolf - no, it is you, who is boring, with his constant rants, showing nothing more, than pure ignorance. You claim yourself an SW developer? OMG, how comes? You seem to have zero understanding, how SW development of something as a language goes - that is a fact, understandable by someone even as lame as myself :-)

Why do you ignore Red roadmap? R2 is there only for a starter. Who told you, there is not going to be a strong concurrency system (in opposition to any REBOL effort so far), and strong parse system? If you claim the opposite, you are publicly lying. And a console? Red will have one later too.

You always claimed, that you will not touch any language, which is not fully open sourced. Red is such a language, and all I can see from your side is just blatant lies, lack of understanding of the concepts and plans. Some of us, at least donate to Red author, you do nothing, just rant here.

Bart
28-Jan-2012 15:36:24
Got the time?

Some people in Mendocino County do, the heartland of Rebol. http://mendotimebank.wordpress.com/about/

How does that relate to Rebol? It doesn't.

But, if Rebol were reorganized to include a time bank there might be some movement forward for Rebol. The time of the work of contributors is recorded - and rewarded in shares of a restructured Rebol company.

Carl would retain as much control as he likes.

Rebol is a valuable language. It has commercial value too.

To realize the value, it must be kept alive. We can all share in it, in one way or another. As sales increase, the value of shares would increase, perhaps these shares can be traded like the shares of other private companies. Not all shares are traded on the public stock exchange.

And/Or shares may be exchanged for a percentage share of net profit on an annual basis.

Time alone is not to be the only criteria, there must be a considered acceptance of the work contributed.

-pekr-
30-Jan-2012 11:22:36
Shadwolf - worked 4 years for Amiga review, I know how to treat the history facts, and I might have more background info on REBOL from various channels,than many ppl combined here.

I don't care about what you say, if anyone here can see,how you miss on integrity. Last post you said about how you would like to have yourself on a project, yet I miss your contribution for World, Red languages. My investment into R2/R3 was around 3500 USD, and I already also donated to Red. It helps its author to dedicate some full time to the development. I don't know, who's more usefull to any such project? Me, at least supporting the case financially, or you, constantly discouraging others, not contributing anything in fact?

You still did not answer one question - what do you suggest to do, to solve the situation. And as R3 situation seems unsolvable, what language do you suggest to use instead? Why are you still here, if you don't have any interest in REBOL or its clones?

As a hobby project, I support Red, that's my decision, so no need to tell me, how much late it is on schedule - i support Red, because I want to ...

xRatio
17-Mar-2012 17:12:12
Carl Sassenrath, in my opinion, really is a genius.

But two very basic things in his REBOL are not very well thought-out.

1. The abolishment of the good old function syntax:

FunctionName( param1, param2... )

Carl replaced the Functions delimiters () by blanks.

This was never and never will be a good idea.

We see the terriffic results in windoze command.com and cmd.exe.

2. Carls sympathizing with -sorry- idiotic concepts

Only bloody beginners, far away from clear logic, like to play with "OOP", "objects, "classes", "methods" and other nonsens.

Let us all hope, that Carl will continue his brilliant, really ingenius work.

xRatio

Thomas
5-Apr-2012 16:40:05
R.I.P. rebol blog
Steven White
6-Apr-2012 6:31:31
I see that the first post on this item was March 28, 2011, and this might be the only place where any activity has taken place recently. Therefore, I think we should do an annual memorial posting here. This year, 2012, seems to be covered. Someone remember to check back here in 2013.
shadwolf
9-Apr-2012 8:50:50
xRatio hum .. you 1) prouves you didn't understoud Rebol. The base element in Rebol is the block! everything is built on that.

a function is just a special block!... that's why you see everywhere square brackets. this is a better way to see groups. I want to group a serie of something in rebol even rebol instructions ? I put them in a [] and that's clear to read for anyone.

How can someone be a genius and an idiot? You can be genius and lazy. and in my opinion Carl tryed to take the lisp concept and spice it to make it more PHP like (or more Perl Like :P)

But if you want to write pure procedural code you can.

the OO part is in my opinion affortable on really big rebol projects. And the bigest project I ever seen in rebol where around 7k lines of code (was the oldes flash-dialect.). A part from that, you pretty much do things with minimal structure.

Indeed it's dead and more time pass more it's difficult for the Gurus to maintain activity.

Even the blah blah house called altme is abandonned.

-pekr-
10-Apr-2012 9:08:29
Shadwolf - just FYI - Altme is not abandoned. There was an outage, and we were not able to reach Carl, so we decided to start REBOL4 world, which is not hosted by RT, but by a community member ...
srinivas
10-Apr-2012 21:15:33
Pekr - Is there a regular push/publication (like rebol3 world) that allows people to read the messages from Rebol4 world using the web/browser? Curious to see what discussions are taking place.

It is unclear whether "Rebol experiment", as stated above in the post by Carl, has been completed or abandoned.

Henrik
12-Apr-2012 0:54:40
Answering for Pekr: We had one for the old world, and I don't think it would be difficult to continue it. We'll look into it.
robbie
17-Apr-2012 9:02:17
Please do Henrik. I pop in here from time to time - sad to see what has happened to R3, but like to think there will be a resurgence with Red, World or a.n.other.
Henrik
29-Apr-2012 23:52:33
Robbie, some groups are now web-public. The list will grow as we figure out which other groups to make web-public:

http://www.rebol.org/aga-groups-index.r?world=r4wp

Luis.
25-May-2012 0:41:32
Well, looks like he's made a lot of people's decision very simple.

Cheers,

Luis.

leglaude
11-Jun-2012 7:09:20
R.I.P
Cooter
23-Jun-2012 10:00:13
Moi j'y crois encore et de toute façon le produit reste très efficace même sans être dans sa version 3. Oubliez les frameworks où vous n'avez plus besoin de connaitre les mécanismes interne, la machinerie...et revenez aux fondamentaux: REBOL reste un langage révolutionnaire où la sémentique dénotationnelle fait des merveilles! Carl, on compte sur toi et merci encore pour ce merveilleux langage!
leglaude
23-Jun-2012 10:10:16
carl, what can we do to help you come back ?
rondney1979
23-Jul-2012 6:42:34
Great projects thank you very much carpet cleaning chicago
fva
25-Jul-2012 15:03:30
This is sad. All the best to Carl.
Anil
23-Nov-2013 23:02:34
Hi All,

I am new to REBOL. just wondering how to load an .jpg image in rebol console. Can any one please send code?

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