Having been away from Rebol for several years and working at a fantastic consumer electronics company on cool projects, you may be asking yourself: what is my interest in Rebol at this point? Honestly, I still love Rebol, and I continue to use it for what I think of as "hobby" projects. For me it's kind of like making wine, handling ranch tasks, fiddling with ham radios, or pondering/proposing electro-magnetic theory. I never stop thinking about them, but they take a back seat to my pay job.
Yes, I know that Rebol has forked several ways. What's my view of that? I see it as mostly positive. There many good ideas and serious progress being made. People want progress. Many of these ideas reflect my own desires for the future of the language. Those who use and depend on Rebol know what they want from language technology. I'm no exception from that.
I'll be saying more about my interests, and what I've learned about myself in recent years in the world of commercial products and technologies. A lot of what I learned is just practical insights, like focusing on getting products done. But, those lessons are mixed-in with some big-dream projects. I keep thinking about those those moon robots that someone once suggested would be made possible with Rebol. I like that kind of thinking... those big bold ideas.
-pekr-
25-Feb-2018 20:17:37 |
Welcome back, Carl :-) |
Iarnold
25-Feb-2018 21:01:41 |
I'll second Pekr on that. Know you had the "home" advantage on publishing a new blog article after meeting the Red team. I think you have beaten 'them'. Hope to see more posts soon reflecting even more on ongoing efforts.
|
JankoM
25-Feb-2018 21:13:02 |
wow ... if building in the cloud and 64-bit rebol for Linux would come true a huge rock would roll of my heart. I use rebol for quite widely used web-app and my constant fear is that with some major linux update good old trusty R2 will just stop working.
I can help with first project (css/js). I will write you. Please keep these two goals going.
ARM / rpi version would be very nice addition too!
|
iArnold
25-Feb-2018 21:24:33 |
The Rebol/command for free. Great. There also was talk about Altme opensourced. Love to see that for Android. And a little support for Ren-C? |
Henrik
25-Feb-2018 21:35:53 |
Nice to hear from you again, Carl.
Rebol still feels light years ahead of anything else out there. Its ideas must not be lost.
While forks may be a good thing for basic survival, someone carrying the torch is still required.
Maintenance: OSX will soon be 64-bit only, so Rebol 2 might require an update. |
Gregg Irwin
25-Feb-2018 21:58:46 |
The eternal flame burns on. Thanks for the update Carl! |
Ungaretti
25-Feb-2018 23:27:28 |
I can't say how happy I am to see that Rebol may enter a new phase of development. It honestly hurt me to see such a brilliant work slowly rust away. |
Graham
26-Feb-2018 1:58 |
Hi Carl. Bo mentioned to several times that we are ready to take over the rebol.org domain but I gather this hasn't been a high priority for you.
Please give it a few minute of your time to confirm whether you still wish to go ahead on this. |
Nick
26-Feb-2018 5:44:01 |
Hi Carl! I would pay well to get R2/View ported to run in the browser, on Android and on iPhone (iPad, etc). Please let me know if you have any interest in performing ports to any of those platforms. |
DideC
26-Feb-2018 7:23:07 |
Hi, Carl ! Very pleased to read you again.
Happy reboling again.
And to second the fear of Henrik on 64bit R2 on OSX, I have posted several time about the 64bit Linux one. It works nicely except some checksum and hashing things. Not hard to solve I think, as the code is already in R3. |
Josephd
26-Feb-2018 8:50:27 |
Good to know about you and see that you stay healty and give new impetus to the Rebol language.
Some of us would like to see a close collaboration of Rebol and the Red language
and if possible for you, would like to see you on these forums, that will give mutual
benefit for all involved people.
Meanwhile I wish you to continue making excellent wines. |
Steven White
26-Feb-2018 14:52:26 |
Nice to hear from you. Your return should not go unmarked lest you think nobody cares, so let me add a few ideas that would be important to me, here on the periphery of the computing galaxy.
Lately I have been using R2 heavily at work, and I work in a place that has decided to standardize on Windows, so the Windows version of anything is important to me (you mentioned somewhere that you don't use Windows, but it still is "popular").
In a couple years I hope to purchase a laptop computer for personal use, and I would have two requirements, that it NOT be a Windows computer, and that it run REBOL. The current plan is a Macbook with Windows virtualized, so I would like to see R2 on a Macbook. (Yes, I do know it runs on OSX, but I have had a bit of trouble with that and so I can say that it definitely is not as smooth as Windows, which I guess then is another implicit requirement.)
Almost everything I do needs a GUI, realistically. The nice thing about VID is that there is documentation, and that the svv/vid-styles object makes VID features discoverable. I have had a bit of trouble finding comparable documentation for any of the variants of R3 (not that I have looked terribly hard since I still have R2). That is why I cling to R2. Something that exists and works trumps something that is perfect but does not exist. I have offered to chip in a small amount of money for Nick's R2/View porting project.
I wish I could help with some of your projects, but my computer knowledge is so far out of date that even the computers I learned on no longer exist. My design talents are at the level of two-by-fours and carriage bolts. So good luck with your projects and we are glad to see you back. |
Edoc
26-Feb-2018 15:52:18 |
Glad to see you back in the game Carl. As you well know, computing has gotten a lot more complex since the Rebol manifesto, in particular over the past 5 - 10 years. Simplicity is a more radical idea than ever, so welcome back to the fight amigo. |
rebolek
26-Feb-2018 19:26:57 |
Hi Carl,
please rewrite your "Back to personal computing" article for this era (with new CSS, that's understood). It won't be that hard, change "Windows 95" to "Windows 10" and megabytes to gigabytes, you are still right, it's just the scene that changed.
What is the harm with a 10MB program? Don't you know that memory is cheap? - that article is getting more and more relevant today. 10MB would be great. |
Bo
26-Feb-2018 20:48:50 |
Thanks for the update, Carl! Always great to hear from you. |
Endo
26-Feb-2018 21:46:06 |
It is great to see updates on rebol.com!
put selected portions of Rebol 2 on a git server. Is this worthwhile?"
I definitely would like to see R2 on git!
I hope we hear from you more often. |
John
27-Feb-2018 17:33:14 |
Always, I will consider that Carl had genius in him when he came up with REBOL. It sure would hold my interest if Carl ever wrote a memoir on REBOL, what languages he swiped ideas and the like.
On more practical matters, Carl might not know this, but REBOL 2.7.8.3.1 on Windows stopped working back in October 2016.
During SSL/TLS handshakes, REBOL only offers ciphers that current servers no longer support. So for practical purposes, REBOL no longer can be used as an Internet messaging device.
I wonder how many tried REBOL for the first time between 2016 and 2018 only to walk away from it after hitting this problem. |
Steven White
28-Feb-2018 1:10:07 |
Others have noticed the security issue also (or perhaps you are one of the others):
https://forum.rebol.info/t/updating-tls-bounty/478
|
GregP
28-Feb-2018 22:33:42 |
Hi Carl, good to read you again. I started REBOL in 2001 and I'm still a big fan. I wish you would not have stopped. The syntax remains really elegant and powerful. The X-Internet was invented way before Apps and keeping things simple! |
max
9-Mar-2018 4:22:36 |
64 bit rebol SDK on windows and linux would be HUGE.
we're constantly hitting the 2GB RAM problem. |
Giuseppe Chillemi
9-Mar-2018 8:24:02 |
Hi Carl, nice to read from you again.
We still need the REBOLUTION, expecially when I spend 12 hours installing Visual Studio 2017 on SSD and I have to reinstall it.
About R2 source: please publish it as many companies are suffering from source being closed and no updates happening. We are loosing customers.
|
Maartem Koopmans
9-Mar-2018 10:19:20 |
I think REBOL2 would already be extemerly usable if:|
- it's 64 bit on Linux in the Command version, with all SSL etc pathes applied
- Apple requires 64 bit versions soon. I think an update of R2 would be necessary in order not to have it become obsolete. And even better, like the abobe point: Command 2/x 64 bit on OSX
|
Graham
11-Mar-2018 0:38:58 |
R3 as per the ren-c fork is already 64 bit and available on linux/apple. We're just waiting for some funds to pay someone to update the TLS to 1.2. |
Doyouminecrypto
11-Mar-2018 17:45:23 |
Awesome guys.. I’m quite new to programming but this as good a time as any and maybe if the BEST time for me to get in heavier. Rebol and Red will be great t delve in. |
klausnrooster
12-Mar-2018 2:56:17 |
Hi Carl! I use my R2 scripts every day for over 17 years now. Barely skim the Lake but it makes life easier and I enjoy doing it, a lot. Releasing SDK? R2 on Github? Yes, please. Your endorsement of Red-Lang comes just in time for me. Thank you for all of it, past and future. Dig our Roku, btw. - Jay H. |
Jean-Jacques
24-Mar-2018 8:58:04 |
La magie opère toujours car Rebol est magique et magifique.
J'aime rebol et les gens qui sont autour.
JJV de Paris France Welcome to Paris Carl with the friends. |
Fresh Cuisine From Forth
24-Mar-2018 15:49:47 |
If you feel the service is slow and inattentive at the REBoL Cafe:
http://www.wearerebol.com/
Why not try out Forth Projects?
http://www.forth.ca/
We're located right next door to the "Error 404: Hair Salon"...at the intersection of Access Violation and User ID Not Found. |
malko
28-Mar-2018 12:37:10 |
I can't say how happy I am to see that things are going on !
Releasing the Rebol/Command for free is an excellent initiative. Hope that we will not have to wait to long for the "Building in the Cloud" project to succeed. |
Olivier
18-Apr-2018 9:01:55 |
Thanks for the SDK release in april the 15th, but the windows version is not the last : REBOL/View 2.7.7.3.1 28-Feb-2010, i'm using REBOL/View 2.7.8.3.1 1-Jan-2011 at the moment
|
Pier Andrea
9-May-2018 13:51:59 |
I hope this can be the starting point for (re)proposing Rebol as innovative language for NET and IoT programming. |
Peter Brown
20-Jun-2018 9:20:30 |
4 months since the last post... :-( |
Another Max
12-Jul-2018 20:35:34 |
Hi Carl,
Rebol 2 on git would most likely be the single most useful thing to do to promote Rebol and give it a long happy life.
And as the comments above show, it would be very useful to many of us, including myself.
Why not setup a crowdfunding project to finance it ?
Probably that many of us would be interested in participating. |
Steven White
13-Jul-2018 14:16:03 |
I would be interested. REBOL 2 might not be absolutely perfect in the eyes of its creator, but it still is really good.
Just yesterday I wanted to parse a web site accessible only with https. I couldn't do it in R2 (if I understand things correctly) but I was able to get the job done with REBOL 3 from saphirion dot com. But R3 seemed not to be able to send an email of my parsing results. Everything seems to be missing just one or two key pieces.
It seems to me, not knowing how any of this stuff really works, that REBOL 2, "imperfect" as it might seem, still could be really useful with just a few updates (https, tls, some issues with "call," run on 64-bit linux, binary files on clipboard).
REBOL 2: Live long, even if you can't prosper. |
Steven White
14-Jul-2018 1:10:18 |
It seems I was wrong about https; might have been thinking of ftps, which might make the point just as strongly. |
shadwolf
19-Jul-2018 20:31:52 |
r2/view in the public domaine just for educational purpose would be fantastic.
Nice to see you back in rebol universe. |
tirol
26-Sep-2018 0:39:33 |
thanks for all the work over the years. i never really got to use it, but i recommended rebol many people to get their hands on programming their own tools. |
Martin
4-Oct-2018 4:53:09 |
Hello Carl, are you still actively working on Rebol? It would be great to see updates and new builds, especially for Linux/x64. |
Roman Smith
17-Oct-2018 5:01:36 |
Thank you for posting a wonderful blog. I am Garmin Device adviser, you can share
http://garmin-updates.net/sat-nav/ |
shadwolf
24-Oct-2018 15:16:43 |
8 month since this post. And nothing else.
Carl why is it so difficult for the inventor of "the Messaging Language" to create, mantain a dinamic around rebol.
Let's say tomorrow you entitle me with that task. I use rebol I don't build it. It would be very difficult to do that in your place. You are the only one with a true understanding of rebol. You are the one able create a foundation to teach people how it's done. Do you think that linux kernel project would be where it is without the backing and organising of Linus Torvald?
I understand you don't want to spend your whole life on rebol. But at the mean time you don't delegate and don't ask for help.
You could do crowd founding for road maps proposal for example.
you could create an developper community to share knowledge test new ideas, see if they raise monney.
you want to make rebol the next big thing contact google present them rebol and say you propose it to be the javascript remplacement. create a community that gives a purpose to rebol. You could have done that 15 years ago and still can.
Saying rebol is for ELITE is as empty as REBOL is for every purpose.
Viva la Rebolution |
Jon
17-Feb-2019 0:17:23 |
YEAH!!!
I'm BACK, BABYYYY!!!! |
Peter Brown
11-Mar-2019 12:54:44 |
REBOL IS DEAD. RIP |
Phong Nha
22-Mar-2019 11:57:24 |
:( |
gooby
1-May-2019 15:10:54 |
goobers |
???
3-May-2019 13:15:36 |
What happened to AltME? |
Bobik72
7-Jun-2019 10:52:27 |
Any news from Carl in 2019? :-) |
Oldes
13-Jun-2019 14:50:07 |
I don't think Rebol is dead. You are just not where the life actually is.
At this moment, there are 3 somehow active branches.
- Ren-C - https://github.com/metaeducation/ren-c/commits/master
- Atronix (with SKIA now) - https://github.com/zsx/r3/commits/atronix
- Oldes (my) - https://github.com/Oldes/Rebol3/commits/master
And of course there is also Red - https://github.com/red/red
All of them are focused on something else, but that is the price of being Rebol open-sourced.
Hearing from Carl, that he is doing fine would be nice, but it looks that his interest is elsewhere. |
Oldes
13-Jun-2019 14:56:11 |
Also.. if anybody has an issue with R3-alpha, remember that there is still an active issue tracker: https://github.com/rebol/rebol-issues/issues |
PINGofpong
14-Jun-2019 7:34:39 |
REBOL terminated...
its always enlightening going back to basics with all things Professor Eric Laithwaite:the inventor of the linear motor.yt
its a real shame red got sidetracked with virtual mula as we really need a real useable rebol ESP32 AND RELATED boards port asap before java and python kill everything else off there too just like the missed cable stb,pro video expansion, and arm kodi box's before it ,someone port SOMETHING PLEASE |
Oldes
14-Jun-2019 8:59:57 |
(at)PINGofpong
To support ESP32 one need just Arduino build? It should not be too difficult, but I'm not expert in this field. Also I don't have any Arduino board and my long time goals for Rebol/Red usage are not focused on IoT (at least not now).
There is mentioned RaspberryPi build in this post: http://tiny.cc/b8n97y but unfortunately I've never seen any source from TGD-Consulting (their GitHub account has just old Rebol fork without any commit from their side)
Anyway... they have still live page powered by Rebol running on RPI -> http://rebol.tgd-consulting.de/ Maybe you should contact them. |
Pier Andrea
15-Jun-2019 19:17:13 |
I'm fascinated by Rebol and week-by-week I return to this blog looking for news.
In the IoT world Rebol could play an interesting role...
...see you nex week.
|
pongofPING
16-Jun-2019 6:53:14 |
? i have to strip out h t m or it crashes as above, or changing my name works ?odd
the "focused on IoT" is rather a PR pushed fallacy when it comes to the dual core + a 3rd superlow power core modern 4 meg ESP32 just as the amiga was just a games machine not a real PC.. see the datasheet for proof
espressif ... "esp32_datasheet_en.pdf"
|
PINGofpong2
16-Jun-2019 6:57:33 |
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19016945
As far as I'm aware, the focus of RIOT is to make embedded development as similar as possible to the way you'd write an application on Linux, including most of the relevant POSIX APIs. This is what, as far as I know, sets it apart from other systems such as Contiki or FreeRTOS, which have non-POSIX APIs for interaction with the OS. |
pongofPING
16-Jun-2019 6:59:34 |
https://github.com/gschorcht/xtensa-esp32-elf
Xtensa ESP32 Toolchain for RIOT-OS
This a precompiled Xtensa ESP32 Toolchain generated with crosstool-NG and configured for the usage with RIOT-OS. In difference to the precompiled toolchain from Espressif, it has enabled the IOs for C99 formats, long long, floats, and doubles. |
PINGofpong
16-Jun-2019 7:14:31 |
small bits seem to work, lots more to say but get some an play yt related vids to just see how esp32 with rebol/red wireless plugs into everything today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xscBwC1SrF4&list=WL&index=2&t=0s
ESP32 MicroPython Web Server |
Bobik72
23-Aug-2019 7:26:11 |
Thank you very much guys for the info! :-) I still use R2 for scripting but there is limitation of non-supporting the UTF, Unicode etc. And this is fatal for me working with czech and finish chars :-)) The solution is for me great R3 Saphir release but yes it is also "dead" - what a pitty!!! :-) And yes third solution is RED of course but still not "usable" GUI for me :-) |
Steven White
24-Aug-2019 14:03:25 |
There might be a fourth solution here: https://www.atronixengineering.com/downloads/
|
Oldes
28-Aug-2019 10:02:17 |
(at)Bobik72 (Unfortunately) Red's GUI is the most advanced at this moment. If there is something what makes it not "usable", you should report it in proper places.
(at)Steven in my opinion Atronix build is not a solution, because I cannot consider it open source anymore. Although the main source code is still being updated occasionally in this repository: https://github.com/zsx/r3 it depends on submodules which are not public. For this day it depends on these private only repositories: angle, skia, reb-skia and remotery. Without these you cannot make own Atronix build.
Also if you look at issues in the Atronix's repository, you may see that there is nobody responding to any of these. |
-pekr-
7-Sep-2019 15:23:15 |
Oldes, AFAIK Bobik is doing small useful apps. Working with data, you often need two basic things - DB connectors and at least the basic ability to display a columnar data (grid). None of that is yet awailable for Red, or is it? I do remember some R/S SQLite scheme, but not sure about any kind of text-list? |
Test
19-Nov-2019 13:02:54 |
Test |
Pier Andrea
12-Jan-2020 21:37:56 |
Happy new Year, Rebol! |
activate Nuance Dragon S
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Steve Shireman
7-Jul-2020 4:43:31 |
I've been developing REBOL apps for the last couple decades putting food on my table. Rebol is a most amazing language. My development is focused on vertical markets: (cell phone development, petroleum transport, health information exchange running over 10 years without problems, distance learning, AI collaboration, fitness, automotive, dairy automation, and agriculture farming. I took a sabbatical in 2007 for some time but never lost the faith. Rebol exhorts me to create products not possible without it. I am so glad Rebolers carried the torch. Quarantine time granted me the flexibility to focus 24/7 on Rebol. I realize now Carl has reached his end goal. R3 rocks! The future is bright indeed. |
David Murphy
12-Nov-2020 12:10:44 |
It seems to me that for all practical purposes Rebol is dead. Hits live in and red is active but its lost the focus of the original language. Pity it's always fascinated me. |
Bob
25-May-2021 15:52:36 |
Any chance of Carl just releasing the R2 source code? It is clear that the product is EOL, and support is NIL. I know "R3 is the future" but there are still some of us who prefer R2 and do not want to see it die. Carl seems to have all but walked away from Rebol, which is fine, but sure would be nice if the product could live on through its still-active user base. |
Pier Andrea
18-Jan-2022 3:25:55 |
The first request for 2022 is about the future of the great R2 development line. Hope still lives. |
Oldes
25-Jan-2022 8:04:51 |
No R2 development anymore...
But there is my work: https://github.com/Oldes/Rebol3
There is Fork's work: https://github.com/metaeducation/ren-c
And there is Nenad's work: https://github.com/red/red
Cheers! |
Kaj de Vos
14-Feb-2022 18:06:28 |
I recently released my new REBOL-like language Meta for PC platforms:
https://language.metaproject.frl
It's still early days, but it is aimed at doing many of the things discussed above. |
You can post a comment here. Keep it on-topic.
