World: r3wp

making some things possible that are currently infeasable .... like 
mp3 playback from within Rebol.

I think we've had plenty of excitement? I just think most of us wouldn't 
see it so soon, plus Carl has a million things in the pipeline...

Terry: you may be right, and you may be not. I like AJAX. But is 
Google Earth Ajax'ed? Or MSN? Skype? Winamp? ...

On rebcode, check the alpha/beta downloads http://www.rebol.net/builds/031/rebcode.zip
 but be sure to read the warning in the docs!!!

wow! too bad I can't play with it now, but I'm sure pekr would like 
to give it a try? :-)

Philb, a realistic rebcode gain in real code is 16-18x, but a lot 
depends from how much is optimized the rebol code and the rebcode 
-- obviously if you use it in loop anly to do math on integer, gain 
can be greater, and if you make a lot of change on string and image, 
gain can be lesser.

For example i wrote a Arc4 algorithm in rebol and rebcode: the result 
is 16x with maximum optimization on both side (i can reach).

I think that the example of Carl: unrolled loop of integer add, is 
just the best case for rebcode performance. Consider it a max.

just run demos. From doc I can understand it is still missing some 
features, so not fully finished?

Romano - you talk about it in a strange mood, don't you? Would you 
guys expected rebcode to speed rebol even further?

My 30x quote was from Carl's Blog .... he waas just being more realistic 
I think.
Still a 16x increase is pretty impressive ....

Yes, impressive, and useful: the arc4 code is almost unuseful in 
rebol code, but acceptable in rebcode. And it can be also more fast 
if rebcode had 1) math on char 2) pick and poke 0 based

i f i find some time, i will implement the blowfish algorithm a lot 
pmore complex than arc4, can be a good test.

for the impatients: Gabriele did a great job of taping everything, 
the audio was taken directly from the speackers microphone and it 
will be available in high quality mpeg4/aac

were some pizza tech party technical talks recorded? :-)

my experience is, that the most valuable info comes in just such 
sessions, not presentations and QA sessions :-)

- Pekr : Carl hasprepared his presentation the night before he given 
it (so he was not in great form this particular day ;-)


- About Internet connection : the scholl connection where we were 
is provided by an Italian telephon companie that ensure the security. 
Mario have tried more than a week before to have some opening on 
it. Lot of faxes, telephon calls and time lost. We were all disapointed 
of that, in or outside the Devcon.


- Rebcode : it will be part of Rebol soon. You can even try it if 
you want (windows builds folder, the zip file). But it still in design 
stage. The form, the capabilities and implementation are sugest to 
changes. Carl has insisted on the fact that rebcode will be a bit 
tricky to use. Kind of assembler code. Not for newbies.


- Rich text : Cyphre show us its work. Actually it's a .dll, like 
he did with AGG in the begining. It's not just a renderer : it's 
editable rich text. Dialect base like Carl's blog proposed. Nothing 
more to say, it's just a prototype, a proof of concept, like AGG 
was at its time. It use AGG as engine, so font can be aliased or 
not.

DideC - thanks a lot for your info ...

I wonder about further AGG integration - you know, AGG added even 
compositing engine lately, so maybe Rebol's native one could be exchanged 
:-) Also there are now effects provided in 'effect level and AGG 
level, that is inconsistent .... what is more - with rebcode coming, 
we can do most effect ourselves and hopefully be fast enough?

Rebcode just allow integer, string/binary and block operation/calculation.

that is enough - the binary part, no? You can already look at image 
example in the rebcode .zip archive.

and according to docs to rebcode, there is a plan to add kind of 
pick/poke or so ...

I have asked Carl about the problem of effect and draw different 
engine. He answered that the effect engine will be replace by AGG 
at terms. No schedule.

ok, that is good to know, thanks once again ....

editable rich-text - how fast it was? Was it fast enough to have 
small, cute IDE for rebol? Simply text editor for color syntax?

We compared my rich text engine and his one. Cyphre richtext display 
instantly, but is a bit slow while scrolling but usable. It's because 
everything in the area is recompute. Mine take some time to display, 
but scrolling is just an offset of the pane to change.

you use library for that too?

It will be enough for making a new Words if you want ;)

No, mine is 100% Rebol, but just display, no edit at all.

Maarten.. Google earth is AJAX I believe.. (or is it Google Maps?)

not sure - the speed of rebol is sometimes really limiting, let's 
just admit it ... simply - try e.g. here to scroll with altme - really 
slow ...

Google maps

It's pretty the same with richtext. But it's a prototype in external 
.dll

Terry - we do understand your message, but imo rich-apps have their 
place :-) Browser UI's are terrible usability wise. But you may be 
right if you think that browsers become container (canvas :-) for 
various stuff. We should probably managed to get plug-in running 
anyway :-)

OK, so Microsoft is embracing AJAX (XMLHTTP, recently pushed strongly 
by Google’s Google Suggest and Google Maps) and they’re putting their 
own abstraction layer – codename “Atlas” – on top of it to make it 
even easier. But why is Charles Fitzgerald, MS’s general manager 
for platform technologies, saying “People who do (AJAX development) 
are rocket scientists
?"

At first I thought the plug-in was more or less useless... not anymore

Did I forget to mention that a Rebol/plugin will be made for Firefox 
?!

dunno - but AJAX is imo just proving the idea of rich apps we do 
have with Rebol. If not, they would be satisfied with browsers and 
few widgets as is :-)) So AJAX is just kind of rebol aproach inside 
browser. Let's make proper plugins, improve VID and bye bye AJAX 
:-)

DideC: no, that is complete news not mentioned by anyone .... where 
will that group be present? Because I have rather strong objection 
against route we took with plug-in ...

I do not agree to its design in some basic stage - like having only 
one plug-in per page etc. Other things have to be decided BEFORE 
development starts .... e.g. how will you configure it (Flash does 
so with right-mouse click), but rebol has legitimate usage for right-mouse 
click. Proxy detection was not correct and now there is a question, 
if we should go and tunnel network communication using networking 
available to browser or not ...

By having AJAX makes the need for a Rebol plugin LESS necessary. 
than if there was no AJAX.

It's a kind os scoop Carl give us at dinner. Very few people at the 
table.

I say exactly that - AJAX is just quick hack become overhyped and 
later on they will tell - you know - we know how to do things .... 
simply they go after creation of rich apps inside the browser, nothing 
more ...

os scoop?

But I think it's useless to ask "when", as usually.

os=of

DideC - was there any talk about VID and its redesign? It was mentioned 
several times here or there ...

Yes it was....

What had Carl in mind? We have just slides of his presentation, some 
mention of Confabulator, thousands of widgets, VID redone, top window 
transparency etc. Anything concrete?

- I have ask for a package of new and more advanced styles, based 
on the one already available from Cyphre, Romano, Amon, me... not 
sure it will happen.
- Some asked to replace VID by RebGUI (I'm not for that)

- Carl said that the question need reflection : can VID be reworked 
and enhanced, or should it be replace by RebGUI or something new. 
It still an open question.