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[Script Library] REBOL.org: Script library and Mailing list archive

Sunanda
15-Dec-2005
[176x2]
Back in February (!), Anton wrote:

<<By the way, something that I never really liked is the short rebol 
description at the top of rebol.org.>>

OLD TEXT: <<It's a messaging language. 'rebel' not 'ree-ball'.

 code is data and data is code. CGI? Yes. 40+ platforms. only 250K-500K.

 console or GUI. Yes, just a single file. commercial versions = same 
 core + ODBC, SSL, and more -

 shallow learning curve, amazing depth. keep IT simple. if you liked 
 "The Matrix"...>>

We may be slow, but we get there:   http://www.rebol.org

The banner text has been updated to ready pretty much what Anton 
suggested.

Thanks Anton!
Now, a quick challenge.  I'd like several banner texts that we can 
rotate to help keep the thing fresh, and to help unveil other aspects 
of REBOL.

Can we all chip in, please?
Either --- a 75 word (or shorter) snapshot of what REBOL is

or --- some bullet points that we can join to others to help paint 
a picture.

Thanks!
yeksoon
15-Dec-2005
[178]
Maybe one way is for each banner to highlight a feature or strength 
of Rebol.
eg

Dialects are Rebol's greatest power. Dialects allows one to focus 
on expressing the domain specific language.


something along that line..but preferably something that SHOWS the 
benefit and not just tells it.
Anton
15-Dec-2005
[179]
well, thank you Sunanda :)
Sunanda
15-Dec-2005
[180]
You are almost one step ahead of me there, Yeksoon.

The code is in place to make each of the banner statements clickable. 
That will take you to a page with an extended explanation.

Example: one of the soundbites might be "includes cross-platform 
assembler for 20x code speed-up". If clicked will take you to a paragraph 
on rebcode with links to more documentation.

But first, we need the 20 best soundbites :-)
Any offers?
Graham
15-Dec-2005
[181x2]
The library list talks about a new project where there is a patched 
version of View that can make library calls.  I haven't downloaded 
it .. and hope that it doesn't violate RT's rights.
Anyone looked at it to see how it does what it claims to do ?
yeksoon
15-Dec-2005
[183]
Banner...I will try my first one..
--
Do you know....

'Dialects' is Rebol's greatest power ; it allows one to focus on 
expressing and model the the domain in its natural language.
BrianH
16-Dec-2005
[184x2]
Graham, do you mean the dll called by the plugin? It is a (slightly) 
patched version of View which can be called as a library (the other 
way around). Regular View/Pro can make library calls.
Whether the plugin can do what it is said that it can has been a 
matter of much debate. How it does it is similar to how View does 
what it does, with little variation.
Volker
16-Dec-2005
[186]
http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/view-script.r?script=rebcall.r
seems to work through a port. I guess he runs some native app to 
do the real call.
BrianH
16-Dec-2005
[187]
Yeah, looking at his site, it seems that he patches rebol.exe so 
that it loads an additional dll that does the work. He has another 
for FastCGI.
Volker
16-Dec-2005
[188]
I think the "dll" is an external programm. He opens a port and does 
everything through read-io/write-io
BrianH
16-Dec-2005
[189x2]
It runs in-process so he doesn't have to marshal anything.
It really is a dll.
Volker
16-Dec-2005
[191x3]
write-io call-port command length? command
        read-io call-port result 4
;-- Because RebCall starts when WinSock is initialized, use some 
network function to do so
    close open udp://127.0.0.1:0
seems he adds a service to windows-network, or something. dummy open 
starts network, then he can connect.
BrianH
16-Dec-2005
[194x2]
Yeah, but that it'still runs in-process. He just hacks the network 
API so that inserts on that port are redirected to the dll. It seems 
a little sloppy to me.
(sorry, "that it'still" -> "it still")
Volker
16-Dec-2005
[196x2]
but in an external porcess, not in the exe itself? or can windows-networking 
be used to execute code by default?
http://mortimer.devcave.net/projects/rebcall, >100k all in all, and 
.cpp
BrianH
16-Dec-2005
[198]
His addin code is in a real dll. This dll runs in the memory space 
of the rebol.exe process so that no marshalling is needed. The invocation 
of the code in this dll is done through hacking the network access 
api. I don't know how this affects real network code - I am a little 
afraid to run this patch on my system, given this implementation 
strategy.
Volker
17-Dec-2005
[199]
I would not do it. As i understand it, anything with tcp-access can 
then run code, even if sandboxed. Flash from a browser?
Sunanda
22-Dec-2005
[200]
Banner text:

The banner text at REBOL.org is now clickable, and leads to a page 
intended to justify the various claims we make about REBOL:
http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/expand-banner-text.r


Corrections and suggestions for added bullet points are most welcome.
Brett
22-Dec-2005
[201]
The new clickable banner text concept is a great idea. I much prefer 
it to the original.


One comment on the rebcode description - "decimal order of magnitude" 
is probably accurate but seems to read like a "point something" (10%?) 
speed increase. It maybe better to just to say "order of magnitude".

As always, good work for implementing it Sunanda.
Sunanda
22-Dec-2005
[202]
Thank's -- that was fast proof-reading.

And thanks for spotting one of mor more awkwardly phrased phrases. 
It's fixed now.
Terry
26-Dec-2005
[203]
Does anyone know if you can embed the binary of a .dll into a rebol 
script, and load it?  or does it need to be a file?
BrianH
26-Dec-2005
[204]
You can extract the dll to a file on first run and then link to it, 
but you can't link to an embedded dll directly.
Terry
26-Dec-2005
[205]
yeah, that sucks
BrianH
26-Dec-2005
[206x2]
There are techniques to get around this, such as runtime code generation 
(say, with libtcc).
You could also rewrite the link loader to load a dll directly from 
a resource - see the source to BackOrifice for this amazing trick. 
This would require some rewrites to the native-code portions of REBOL 
though.
Terry
26-Dec-2005
[208]
um, not sure i have access to that ;0
BrianH
26-Dec-2005
[209x3]
I have access to the source for BackOrifice, but not that of REBOL, 
alas  :(
For research purposes of course. Its plugin architecture was incredible.
What are you trying to do? Can you get away with downloading the 
dll as a seperate file on first use?
Terry
26-Dec-2005
[212]
Im just trying to hide the dll to keep things squeaky clean.. what 
i've done is embed the binary, and I'll write it to a file, when 
I'm finished, Ill just remove it.
BrianH
26-Dec-2005
[213]
Well there's clean, and then there's rubbed raw. Do you really need 
to be this spotless? Would an on-demand cleanup routine do?
Terry
26-Dec-2005
[214x3]
When I deliver the app, it will have a single .exe
no folders, no libs.. realy want to push the simplicity thing
so 'rubbed raw' is nice and shiny  ;)
Ammon
7-Jan-2006
[217]
It would be nice to have an RSS Feed for the "What's new " section 
on the Script Library home page.
Sunanda
8-Jan-2006
[218]
Nice idea -- someone is workng on it, but it may not happen for quite 
a while.
MikeL
8-Jan-2006
[219]
Sunanda, Can it be a manually maintained xml file until it can be 
automated?  I am doing that for my internal blog until I add the 
automation code to blog. r (that I expect Carl already has on his 
version).  I have a trigger for when a blog article is added to use 
"editor ftp://...../rss.xml"to make whatever additions that I want 
to expose via RSS.  It's suboptimal but I don't have any complaints 
from the people that they have to visit the pages to see What's New. 
 And since they weren't visiting regularly to poll for What's New 
anyway, if the RSS feed it updated a few hours later it is still 
an improvement.
Sunanda
8-Jan-2006
[220]
Mike, I'd rather wait until the volunteer who is doing the RSS has 
added the code, rather than bypass their efforts.

Meanwhile, you have several ways of finding out what  scripts are 
new or changed on REBOL.org:
-- we'll sen doyu a tailored email

    http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/cpt-update-profile.r
    See Section 4, Notices
-- you can peek at your unsent notices to get advanced warning:

     http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/uns-display-notices.r?ml=yes&my=yes
-- You can use the LDS API:
       do http://www.rebol.org/library/public/lds-local.r

      probe lds/send-server 'list-updated-scripts [5]   ;; what's changed 
      in the last 5 days?
-- Just eyeball the script library home page:
     http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/script-index.r
eFishAnt
8-Jan-2006
[221]
I fixed the ez-plot.r q-plot.r condense.r get-stock.r  script combo 
for View 1.3.2  (get-stock.r had broken) and I sync'ed it to Developer/Users/steve-shireman/ez-plot-updates 
  I tried on both IOS Link and View1.3.2, so hope it works on all 
the others.  Feel free to stick it in the Library.
Graham
8-Jan-2006
[222]
that presumes we have IOS working ?
eFishAnt
8-Jan-2006
[223]
Sunada has access.  I put it there since the 4 scripts work together, 
its a very simple way to have a known working (tested) directory 
shared with others.  I don't know how to do this on the Library, 
and not wanting to mess up what is there already (in case someone 
sees a problem), so I stuck them in a simple place for review.
Sunanda
8-Jan-2006
[224]
Thanks....IOS/Developer is working finw for me, and I can see your 
changes.

IOS/Developer is a bit of a forgotten Community gem (responses in 
the IOS group, if it still exists
Sunanda
9-Jan-2006
[225]
Graham in the All group asked:

<<Is it not true though that you are limited in what you can do with 
rebol.org ? >>
Yes and no.

It's a shared server with the usual sort of quote limits, so that 
stops some of the wilder plans.

On the other hand, the limits are fairly generous. Right now, we 
do these sorts of numbers:
* 150,000 CGI executions per month
* 2.5 gigabytes of data served per month

* 70 megabytes of hard disk used (mainly for the Mailing List archive)


Of course some sort of bandwidth quota would exist with a dedicated 
server too -- that one comes from the ISP, not the box.
---- 

We've had the same problem most of us have had with servers at one 
time or another: REBOL going feral and failing to close tasks. That 
brought down the server once, and got us suspended for about 30 minutes 
until I beseeched forgiveness. Of course, that could happen with 
a dedicated server (no one quite knows why it happens).


Similarly, we get some leak-through from what are supposed to be 
the chinese walls; and that has caused the odd problem: mainly file 
permissions going askew.
---

As Peter said, the main limitation is manpower. There are several 
things under development at rebol.org right now; there is room for 
many other improvement projects too.