World: r4wp

looks good ...it says workstation not server though?

Yes, Server is non-graphical. At least, it only has DirectFB and 
SDL built in, and no desktop. Workstation is Server plus X11 from 
a GoboLinux layer and the ROX desktop from ZeroInstall

I finally succeeded in compiling the Enlightenment widget set and 
desktop

Sounds like a major milestone.  Bring the next conference forward 
to show it off!

:-) It's only the first steps yet, that are guaranteed to work because 
it's on Linux. The major question is whether I can port it to Syllable 
Desktop

Here's the widget set:

http://web.syllable.org/images/screenshots/Workstation/0.4/Elementary-test-1-on-SyllableWorkstation.png

http://web.syllable.org/images/screenshots/Workstation/0.4/Elementary-test-2-on-SyllableWorkstation.png

I could live with that :)

Kaj, you're on fire!

Can you give us a tiny taste of the RED code?

Kaj is reporting a success of compiling this software.  He hasn't 
done the binding to Red/system yet?

Yes, there is no Red code yet, and I will only write any if I get 
it to work on Syllable Desktop

I am releasing v0.2.5, if you have some unreported bugs to fix, it's 
the right time to add them to the bugtracker. Kaj, let me know if 
there are any regression for the bindings.

Will you blog? What are latest changes? The bugfixes mainly?

bugfixes + faster floats + libc init

I will make a blog entry later today to give more details.

Trouble ahead for Red on Windows 8:

http://www.osnews.com/story/25704/Microsoft_creates_special_application_class_for_Windows_8_browsers

why?

I think Kaj means that Red uses trying to create a browser using 
webkit will have problems

users

Kaj: is the latest revision working fine with all bindings? (at least, 
w/o regressions)

I haven't had time for it yet, but I'll get to it

There seems to be a problem with JIT compilers in new Windows 8 Metro 
apps, and other features deemed too advanced

I have tested 0MQ, GTK+ and SDL on both Windows and Linux, no regression.

Had to fix the comment syntax for the Goodbye Cruel GTK+ World

Release v0.2.5 is out: http://www.red-lang.org/2012/03/redsystem-v025-released.html

I've tested almost all binding examples on Syllable and Linux

I've changed the developing branch of the C library binding to be 
the main branch again (technically, it isn't a merge):

http://red.esperconsultancy.nl/Red-C-library/timeline

Could it be that when a function is applied to multiple argument 
expressions, f exp1 exp2, they are computed in reverse order?

Is that acceptable? It's quite anti-intuitive, especially once inline 
assignments will be supported

Anti-intuitive ? It makes the generated code simpler to write since 
the parameters are pushed in reversal order so that the called function 
can unstack them in order.
C compilers do the same IIRC.
But I agree it's not rebol compliant.

I'm not sure if C forces any order for parameters evaluation.

But i'm sure it makes the compiler's task easier to evaluate in reversal.

I know you already know Kaj, but it sounded like you asked for logic 
:-)

Could it be that when a function is applied to multiple argument 
expressions, f exp1 exp2, they are computed in reverse order?


I agree that it is not intuitive, but doing otherwise would make 
it more complicated to support external libs. It could be possible 
to preallocate the stack and fill it in reverse order, so that arguments 
are executed in right order for the user, but that wouldn't work 
for variadic functions (can't preallocate the stack before compiling 
all the arguments).


It would be nice to add a ticket in the tracker to keep this issue 
in mind.

As we do the compilation and code generation in one pass in current 
Red/System, we can't look ahead to determine the boundaries of each 
expression in a variadic block of arguments in advance, to be able 
to extract their datatype.

OK. It got me in trouble, though, because I used this statement in 
the Fibonacci computation:

print [
	"Fibonacci " parameter ": " fibonacci parameter  newline
	"Elapsed time: " subtract-time  now-time none  start  newline
	"Process time: "
		(to-float form-integer process-time) /
		to-float form-integer clocks-per-second  newline
]

In the C version I already noticed that I had to put the computation 
in front of the reporting, but I hadn't expected this, and certainly 
not in a language that looks like REBOL

Actually, the single pass nature of Red/System strengthened my assumption 
that the computation would be in natural order

We have a "chunked" compilation mode that could be used to re-order 
the code once generated, but I'm not sure it could work in such case. 
The best thing to do for now is to document it in the tracker.

Done

Thanks.

Doc - congrats to 0.2.5 release - nice to hear, that first alpha 
of Red can be here in few weeks, although it will not do much yet 
...

First alpha of Red in a few weeks?  Sounds great!

that's what Doc replied on his blog:


@Thomas: for the very first Red alpha, only memory management, basic 
datatypes and a few natives/actions. Ports and I/O will probably 
be added in following alpha versions, as PARSE. If we don't hit any 
walls, we should have it a few weeks, probably a month.

The first Red will probably have all the capabilities of Red/System, 
so I think it will be able to do quite a lot

Exciting news