World: r3wp

Some things you don't notice from the inside, until you're on the 
outside again. In support of making things open: I've recently read 
up on a few technologies and, while their blog entries and such are 
very nice, there were a number of typos. I wanted to just correct 
these little things, but I can't. I can't help in a very small, controlled 
way without talking to someone first, setting up an account, getting 
permission of some kind, etc. And that's just too much trouble to 
do for more than a small number of sites. 


It will get better, and it shouldn't be too hard to have even simple 
rules to control anonymous edits, but right now things are often 
all-or-nothing.

 To get back into noob level questions:
 


What is more noob than "is there documentation that explains things?"


Gregg, right, so in simple terms, REBOL is so small, and so much 
a clique... what do we have to lose by not just opening everything 
up? (Docs I mean).

Accuracy.

Assming you meant "what do we have to lose by just opening everything 
up?"

If you meant what you said, then what we have to lose is appearances. 
We don't gain any help, just reputation.

How is accuracy lost, I'm not suggesting unmoderated wikis, just 
ease of access?

Accuracy is only lost, if the editor doesn't have any contact with 
us, so we can talk to him/her, which seems to be the case of the 
recent edits.

one problem I see with opening up the wikis to a larger degree is 
that the number of moderators (or perhaps more accurately, the number 
of people who are qualified to be moderators and who have the time 
and are willing to vet any changes/additions)  is limited. Maybe 
once the community grows ease of access could be increased.

I can also see that it is somewhat of a catch-22 since the community 
might not grow due to poor documentation. I think I lean towards 
leaving things as they are for now since, as was pointed out, you 
can become an 'editor' without too much hassle.

if we grow much more, we end up with cells of users that don't communicate 
or don't discover eachother and we might get more situations like 
what happened for the wiki.

I lost complete interest in DocBase. While BrianH kind of welcomed 
structural changes one user dit, I feel completly lost. That persono 
completly ruined the DocBase. He has zero knowledge about R3 progress, 
and hence mixed stuff from Gabriele's VID and Carl's VID attempt. 
The info, which was nicely on one page, is now scattered to myriads 
of subpages, etc. This sucks ...

I prefer R3 Chat (and WIP wiki) Carl did, because there is user ranking, 
and only users of certain ranking can do changes. Maybe it can be 
done with the MediaWiki too, I don't know ...

Henrik, Adrian, the good news is, you already have your wish... and 
therefore, things will stay pretty much the same...

Reichart, we have already answered the question of openness by providing 
both: One wiki that is open, for community management, and one wiki 
that is "official", for accuracy. You have to demonstrate a certain 
level of cluefulness to make changes to the official manual. We could 
modify the official wiki so that it links to the community wiki for 
comments, but history has proven that an open wiki can't be counted 
on to have a consistent structure, so we can't count on the pages 
we're linking to to be there. We may do that anyways, since it's 
a good idea (from you).

I have a really "wild" idea for the "structure" of the wiki...


One page for each REBOL word.  I know,  I live on teh very edge with 
these ideas fantastical ideas :)

wiki.REBOL.org/parse

Make it a page hierarchy for PARSE and you've sold me. You're good 
at wikis, why don't you go for it?

The other words can get a page each.

Get Fork to help - he's good at wikis too. I'll chip in with knowledge 
about R3 as needed (and as available).

And about R2 as well, of course, especially about the new stuff.

the help function I changed requires a separate page for each function 
.... in a specific format.

Petr, if someone ruined the wiki, why aren't the pages being rolled 
back?

Gabriele - very extensive changes, like cutton some docs into small 
pieces

cutton = cutting

right... but you can still roll back to a previous version of each 
page that has been modified...

unless nobody cares, that is.

BrianH: Thanks (for above).  I do think that a wiki with only two 
people editing it is not quite going to demonstrate the potential.

Reichart's idea of each function having a page is a good start.  
But I also think there should be pages for cross-cutting topics that 
are linked to liberally when an issue of one of those functions touches 
upon it.

Ladislav's Bindology is an excellent example--I think--of the kind 
of absolutely critical document that wasn't in Rebol's official documentation. 
 (It's unclear why such a study would not be one of the first things 
done in a language project.)  In any case, I think the wiki is a 
good place to be developing such narratives, and this is something 
I've been pushing for.

Brian... agreed.

Reichart: There was a quote Carl made (he was quoting someone else) 
comparing Rebol to the Matrix as being something "you either get 
or you don't".  On a parallel note, I'd cite the first panel in this 
Xkcd: http://xkcd.com/566/

Look, maybe you just suck at explaining.
  :) :)

I've started some crude articles (and BrianH has earned the diligence 
barnstar for correcting them), but they're nothing compared to what 
they could be if more than two people were poking at them.  http://rebol.net/wiki/Scoping_in_Rebol
  http://rebol.net/wiki/Dialect_Design_Considerationshttp://rebol.net/wiki/The_Invariants_of_Rebol

And since we share a leaning toward an interest in design, I'll share 
the Icon/identity ideas I had: http://rebol.net/wiki/REBOL_logo

Hey Fork, what tool did you use to generate the isometric images? 
 Or what technique?

Brock: Sketchup

The 3D one was rendered by Milan Antovic: http://github.com/hostilefork/rebmu/blob/master/rebmu.r

Er, http://www.elance.com/experts/serbia_vojvodina_vrsac/3d_modeling_animation/1853084

(Clipboard being wonky in AltME for some reason)

I didn't feel like learning any rendering packages so I subcontracted 
that, but it's not a final rendering carefully done... just communicates 
the possibility...

Fork, great articles and ideas :)

I really like the logo, and your scoping article is easily understandable.

Good stuff Fork!

Scoping: 

make-employee: func [name id] [
    employee: make object! compose [
        name: (name) 
        id: (id)
    ]
    return employee
]


'employee isn't declared as local. Is it explicit to make the explanation 
more concrete?

Is camelCase used for a reason, rather than following the standard 
REBOL style?

Fork's icon is very cool.

Glad you guys like it...

I tend to use camelCase for local variables to distinguish them from 
functions, but I don't have particularly strong feelings.  If there 
are Rebol coding standards then perhaps a wiki article describing 
them would be a good project for someone who knows them to undertake 
:)

I hope people put pressure on Rebol 3 having a strong visual message, 
and that graphic design is not ignored.  Thus far it does not seem 
to have been given any attention.  My idea is supposed to be a kick-start 
to that process but not the final answer.

There used to be an official coding "style" guide on rebol.com but 
I wasn't able to find it. It seems to have got lost during the website 
refurbishment.

There's this: http://www.rebol.com/r3/docs/concepts/scripts-style.html