World: r3wp

Q: "One Laptop Per Child"

A: "My current understanding is that the target software is Smalltalk 
based"

Why not integrate rebol into smalltalk? You proposed a rebservice-access-library 
anyway, which - ups - is accidentally a real rebol under the hood. 
I expect that smalltalk is squeak, as i saw Alan Kay within the supporters, 
and Child and latops is his long-running topic. If, its multi-platform 
too, maybe we could even use squeaks multimedia in our lacking areas.

In response to the answer to my question about the path action (thanks!) 
I wonder, why do internal functions like path and native need to 
be assigned to global words at all? Can't they be assigned to some 
internal object fields, or in some way be hidden? I know that encapsulation 
isn't really REBOL's style, but littering the public interface with 
undocumented natives that can't even be used by mezzanine code seems 
a little silly.

As for the question about rebcode binding, let me make it clearer:


It would solve all of the object field retrieval problems in rebcode 
to have an opcode added that would be the equivalent to the IN native, 
or maybe BIND. You wouldn't need path evaluation to be added - you 
could just retrieve an object field word and use setw/getw with it. 
Yes, you can use apply, but it is very slow in comparison with opcodes. 
Working with object fields is a pretty basic operation that doesn't 
have any direct support in rebcode, and some have come to miss it, 
particularly those that use objects in data structures. I often use 
blocks for data structures when I can because of the context overhead 
of objects, but some are more used to thinking in object-oriented 
terms. Plus, there's all of those built-in object-based structures. 
Still, I suspect that many of these questions would go away if apply 
was faster :(

Yes, this bind-like opcode was one of the requests that we came up 
with when we were compiling a list of rebcode enhancements. Thank 
you for implementing many of the other enhancements on that list 
:)

Do I need to compile a RAMBO request?

Volker, for now your example can be implemented as this:
    apply w in [object 'action]
    getw value w

one solution is:

>> f: rebcode [] [add.i x x]
>> f': func [obj] [bind second :f obj f obj]
>> probe f' context [x: 3]
make object! [
    x: 6
]

(Still to Volker for this) By using in rather than bind, you save 
a set instruction. Of course if the "object" word refers to a word 
rather than an object, that advantage is less so because we will 
have to convert the word to its context like this:
    apply w bind? [object]
    apply w in [object w]
    getw value w

But for that to work we would need a new rebcode alpha with the 2.6.2 
enhancements.

note that if speed is what you are after, this is likely to be the 
fastest way; if the object changes in a loop, then the rebcode advantage 
is probably not big, though i understand there may be cases in which 
a BIND or IN opcode would be desirable...

Well, it would help for using rebcode as a compiler target (pet project)... 
Still, there have been a few requests for this kind of opcode around 
here, particularly from those using object-based data structures. 
The overhead of such code would go way down if there was some kind 
of fast field access.

Allright, here's a Q: Can we get a new rebcode alpha based on the 
2.6.2 enhancements?

Call it 1.3.62 or something :)

Q: I would like to ask, what is the status of Unicode support. We 
 now have one Czech app, where we have to sort according the czech 
alphabet. We can do some tricks, but it slows down ...

Q: What's the current status of REBOL Demo Contest 2005? Can you 
provide any details to us? Deadline, rules, etc... thanks

Q: What will be the future plan with the browser plugin, say within 
the next 3-6 months? How much more do we need before it can be called 
production ready? I have a few large scale projects that require 
a production ready plugin (so users won't have to download and install 
an executable).

(just to give you a quick - but unofficial, so don't quote me on 
this - answer, i think that the development for the plugin will be 
done completely outside of RT, for example as a community project. 
so it's very unlikely that RT will be able to give you a schedule 
on this.)

unicode answer, if possible, please?

does sorting Czech require Unicode?

dunno ... but sort fails ....

we have e.g. "c" with hook, which sorts behind the "c", but 'sort 
puts it et the end, because those chars are imo at some higher charset 
position ...

i think that ladislav checked on this... and said that the current 
SORT was ok

but aso - doing database for cross poland, czech, slovak users is 
well, impossible ...

anyway... there are no news on unicode support currently... so no 
real answer i can provide you yet.

ok, thanks ...

Pekr: Czech sort does not have anything in common with Unicode. It 
is complicated (much more complicated than useful in computer era). 
Any code (Unicode, ISO Latin2, Windows 1250, ...) can be used, the 
sort algorithm needs to be implemented in any case.

I know those are two distinctive things, but slightly related - simply 
put - rebol's internationalisation support is pretty weak in that 
regard ...

that was Gabriele who asked about sorting and if it needs unicode 
... we need unicode for rebdb though ...

Gabriele: I checked the support of capital letters and found out, 
that all Czech capital letters found in ISO Latin 2 were supported, 
i.e. case conversions were supported. This is somewhat simpler than 
Czech sort.

so far, I will do with calling external conversions routines for 
submitted strings from polish partner ...

I am just saying, that having unicode would be nice :-)

has anyone thought out already at least, how to get unicode in rebol 
working? What becomes with bitsets, which are 8bit based?

rebol's internationalisation support is pretty weak in that regard

 - if you mean that REBOL does not support Czech sorting, then you 
 are right. Otherwise Rebol supports Czech coding supporting ISO Latin 
 2 as mentioned above

not only that - it could be properly supported by sort/collation 
kind of functionality, as other environments do (mySQL). Rebol even 
does not use its system/locale in its own calendar ;-)

in that regard, I wanted to ask Ladislav, about security - is it 
possible to protect system words, even to not be unprotected? :-) 
Imagine rebol would use system/locale for things like system messages 
in order to be translatable, but then someone could change the strings, 
which could be big security risk (user answering to different question)

since I saw Unicode mentioned in the chat message....


I am putting in my "+1" request for Unicode support. eg. languages 
like Chinese

pity we don't know RT's priority list even a bit. 1.3.2, that is 
the cool thing. However, async kernel retired no-one is able to know 
for how long, rebcode is retired no-one knows what and when happens 
to it (e.g. will there be bitmap opcodes as discussed implemented?), 
unicode, rif (where even RT admits it is important for Altme2.0/coop 
project, rebdb is stagnatting because of that), rebin, we wait for 
what-is-going-to-happen-with-VID since devcon, being said we will 
know "soon" ... etc ... So, what is next, guys, and when? :-)

It is not about "we tell you and you quote us on that" thing, but 
about bit of a planning for others ... we surely don't want 14.11. 
exact dates :-) Just months, average ....:-)

I agree. 14.11 is a bit far away. Month would be a lot better! (Did 
i miss something? Opps, SCNR ;)

Volker, that 14.11 was a joke reference to 14-Nov-2005, the date 
given at the conference to all questions about release dates, not 
a version number. That date was given as a joke that many didn't 
get, apparently. Myself included, but I didn't make it to the conference.

Briah - Volker surely knows it was a joke ;-) He just tried to point 
out imo, that we could get some features schedule in months or year-quarters 
...

Hey, noone told me it was originally a joke until after services 
showed up early. Just trying to help :)

But I agree about the schedule. RT has been cut much slack by me 
because of the holidays though.

Brian - you were invited to help with Rebcode in some area - was 
it docs? What is the state of rebcode - nearly final? Is there anything 
else of why it can't be released into production rebol version? Security?

I was invited to help with the docs. I said yes. I never heard back. 
Oh well.

:-) ;-) :-(

But yes, security is abysmal in rebcode. That would need some major 
changes to get into production. I've never seen an easier way to 
crash REBOL. At least it's probably not exploitable, as even the 
slightest error in your code causes REBOL to core dump.

That's what alpha means, so I'm not complaining :)

It's funny, I had to reboot Windows more often while testing rebcode 
than I have ever needed to for an entire year with that computer. 
Server 2003 is very stable, but crashing processes a dozen times 
or more a day can wear on it a little, so I needed to reboot every 
couple days. Normally I would need to reboot only for occasional 
updates of certain third-party software, never more than once a couple 
months.

OTOH, rebcode is great if you know what you are doing, or are running 
code written by someone who does, or generated by a code generator 
written by someone who does. The semantics seem to have stabilized, 
so you can get to work on those generators. When they resolve the 
crashes rebcode will be pretty sweet for REBOL.

Is the rebol.dll included with the sdk2.62 the same as the viewdll 
that is the plugin ?

If so, what are the magic numbers to use to make it act as the plugin 
?  ( the old plugin doesn't have AGG ).
Thanks.