World: r3wp

Ingo - I don't agree at all. It is like saying everyone CAN code 
in C, because you have plenty of free text editors available. You 
would not probably want to see My rebol code and surely you would 
not accept it being part of official distro. So really - No - not 
everybody CAN code pop, imap protocol. If so - why did it take so 
long to get proper FTP protocol ready? Apop? etc.?

And yes, from some perspective, ppl like Cyphre, Ladislav, Gabriele, 
DocKimbel are kind of REBOL "gods", not easily replacable.

However - this discussion is probably a moot point, as Carl seems 
to be taking some contrete aproach to cure the situation.

Cool

Pekr, I'm not saying you will be able to code anythiong worthwhile, 
but you _can_ code it. You have all the tools. But there are parts 
in Rebol where you _can_not_ because you don't have access to the 
code. 

I just feel that those parts, which build the foundation and need 
access to the closed C implementation of R3 should get the most attention, 
at this point in time.

Ingo - but Gabriele is coding VID, which is too only a rebol level 
code, not C one ...

VID3 is not as trivial to implement as protocols, so it's a higher 
priority task.

yes, ftp is so trivial, that we can't get it right for 10 years :-)

probably because no one really worked on it.

anyway - this discussion has nothing in common with initial ideas, 
so regard it just being a normal chat, not that I try to suggest 
what is more important. Once again - my mention of protocols was 
there only for the case, if Carl would not agree to "full" release, 
so I just mentioned it, what could be completed in some sane time-frame 
and released e.g. for Christmas, nothing more. That is no more valid 
or so it seems, but we will see what next week brings to the table 
:-)

Henrik - as for FTP - I think that Gabriele and Romano and Reichart 
might be actually right, that FTP is a real mess :-)

yes, it is unfortunately a mess. I'm not sure what should be done 
with it, other than be implemented by someone who is an expert on 
the FTP protocol, rather than just implement a rudimentary one that 
follows the RFC.

Ehm, I actually worked on the FTP scheme, testing it for Romano who 
did a LOT of bugfixing on it

then Kaj is the perfect man for the job. :-)

No, I'm not :-)

:-)

I think we have two competing goals, quick path to real beta and 
community access and education.  Both are important but for different 
reasons.  It is self defeating for us the community to slow down 
the final goal but at the same time we can't plan or begin the ramp 
up while there is nothing available.  I am still willing to wait 
for the open beta but by the same hand I would also welcome an open 
alpha and understand that we have to take it as it is.  This means 
not pushing on the real team with "noise" of whatever type as to 
distract them.


I worry though that the ramp up is important - if you look at rebol.org 
and scripts it seems so much of it is old, years old, or ancient 
in internet time.  That has to change as well as the wealth of documentation 
and articles has to expand drastically.  The only way that can happen 
in a timely fashion is with community access.  I'd be very willing 
to help on those fronts as best I can.

Yes, it's very demotivating for new people looking in to see that 
almost everything is old and even doesn't work anymore. We have that 
problem in Syllable, too, and I'm pretty sure it has been damaging

The biggest problem is that they will walk away before contacting 
you, so you don't know you're loosing people

Well, what I'm trying to say. If Carl is not capable or willing to 
keep up the communication channels while he is deep into coding, 
then let the code speak for itself.

I think all of us have seen to many great tools going down the drain, 
too many unkept promises (talking globally not about a specific product 
/ company). That's why I thiink that it's better to release whatever 
there is, now, than to wait for christmas to release a product which 
isn't meant to be perfect, either.

Exactly

it seems that someone from Apple are volunteering to help with the 
OSX port of R3.

That would certainly help open some doors and get the product some 
notice.

Cool

except too many cooks !

I'm confused about which metaphor we're using here ...

one cook on the root might be better than 10 in the kitchen?

if you're cooking for a billion people .. one cook ain't enough

unless you have lots of kitchen hands .. ie. many kitchen hands make 
light work

also a new word to learn: "Fireside". I hope the name won't change. 
:-) I'll let you guess for a bit what it is.

R3's marketing name? Not bad

It wouldn't be bad if it were R3's marketing name. :-) It's something 
else, though.

In fact it's probably the answer to the FTP discussion we had earlier.

http://fireside.net/

if I understood it correctly, it's a tool to let users edit all mezzanines 
of R3 directly and then submit those changes to RT, where they are 
filtered through qualified people into the source tree. it's also 
chained to the documentation of the function/protocol as well as 
test scenarios.

Ah, not what I thought. Nice, though

apparently there's already a backend for it and there has been a 
small test with a prototype of it, which was proven to work very 
welll, so a full tool will be built.

Innovative stuff. Not something we can do with Syllable's C/C++ code 
base :-(

sounds like campfire

Nah, that's chat, isn't it?

yes ..

I'd prefer "broadside" :)

in going with the rebol theme

kaj: it's a toy because you can do whatever you want with it, but 
not put it in production, because you'll get no support at this point. 
well, of course, if you want to go into production with no support 
and knowing that the next release may break everything... of course 
you're free to do that, but don't complain to us then :)

Ingo: it should be said, that in R3 you can also code (in C) the 
networking etc. as all that is in the open source part. ie. you can 
add ssl:// yourself.

I've had Syllable in production for five years. I don't mind

I also want to add that we the community need to be careful not to 
push into the release or feature discussions, only Carl and the core 
developer group can know what fits the product development timeline. 
 This is hard as we all have our specific needs but at best those 
are the kinds of distractions the team doesn't need.

umm... the target is the community

if the developers don't develop for the community, whom are they 
developing for?

I'm talking about priorities, why should we tell them what goes together 
in what order.  I expect them to deliver it all at some point *smile*