World: r4wp

We were more focused on lower-level things. The console wasn't much 
of a priority, especially since we were intending to implement it 
in the R3-GUI, and that wasn't there yet.

brianh - imo noone can get acustomed to that weird windows black 
crap :-) R2 is better experience. Carl admitted, that he might return 
r2 console to r3 codebase, and let ppl to develop it further ...

I hate white background, but YMMV :)

brianh - try to locate related blog. carl asked for help - if you 
link view, he was not able to let the conole work in a real console 
way, or something lik that :-) Well, off topic here ...

Right.

brian, you dont mean it, right? do i have multiline, with win native 
console? do i have real hostory? do i have positioning, like r2 allowed? 
:-)

OK, back on Red. If we want to discuss console implementation, let's 
change groups.

For Red, if someone doesn't jump in and do it, Doc will have to. 
Then he has to decide how important it is to helping Red succeed. 
I think it is, and will also help set a foundation for a Red IDE. 
For that, I don't know if it will even help Doc if we write up things 
we like, or don't about various consoles. I think he has a good feel 
for what is needed.

Now, if we can get Doc enough funding, he may be able to direct some 
of it to people he can work with, which would be great, and we can 
set up bountys as well.

gregg, I contributed only 50 eur, as i am setting up photo studio. 
but thanks for reminder, will send in another 50 :-)

Every little bit helps. Thanks Petr!

Actually, I am trying to send 50 on a month basis. Now r3 gui project 
is temting too, but i would have to see the project outline, eg seeing, 
that cyphre will be paid to update the engine to use hw acceleration, 
etc. I would love View engine to be useable with Red too. I ca feel 
some excitement last few weeks, fort both r3 and red projects :-)

Gregg: I have already code for a R2-like console (as shown by Rsharp.exe), 
but anyway, if I can find someone willing to do it and skilled enough, 
I would be glad to delegate that part.

...I have already "C" code...

Yes, RSharp works well in the little test I did here (until I did 
PRINT MOLD SYSTEM/WORDS). :-)

I added a checklist for consoles and IDEs. Put suggestions there 
to gather ideas.

Gregg, that RSharp version was pretty complete, it was implementing 
something like 60-70% of R2 functions/natives/actions.

A partial system object was even present.

Yeah, I was surprised when REPEAT worked.

And nice line editing.

I have fixed the main issue in Red runtime for the REPL to work properly, 
now I just need to extend a bit the tokenizer (LOAD) to handle  blocks 
and a few more details before releasing the code. The current tokenizer 
is very crude, I will rework it in the next days.

Hi Doc,

@ Doc : Will the interpreter have included (some time in the future) 
some of the debug features planned for R3 (Hooks, stack ops, etc...) 
? That would be nice but it's just my wish list ;-)

@ Doc, Thanks a lot for this REPL implementation. this is welcome 
for newcomers I think.

Debugging features: sure, but maybe not the same as R3. I have a 
`stack` native in my notes to add, not sure what `hooks` refers to?

Red REPL preliminary release (be sure to read the commit log before 
trying it):

https://github.com/dockimbel/Red/commit/744bcb072e8f850bd7b9f1e778fe172446f29416

Just compile %tests/console.red and run it!

Reminder: error trapping is not yet implemented, so better type working 
code or you'll be quickly back to Windows console. ;-)

This is just a 4 days work, most of the code was implemented in the 
first 24h, the rest was spent debugging it and adding minor features.

I plan to continue working on it until 1st January to add Unicode 
support to the tokenizer and make the interpreter on par with the 
current compiler. I will then resume the work on object and ports.

I might also implement a cross-platform console if nobody shows up 
to do the job.

BTW, when you call functions from the console (FIRST, PROBE, LAST,...) 
defined in %boot.red, the interpreter will use the compiled version 
instead of evaluating their body....this is just to make Kaj even 
more confused. ;-)

I will also probably make a new major release, bumping the version 
to 0.4.0 when the REPL will be completed.

Hi Doc: Here is about the above Debug Hook mention. It is drawn from 
http://www.rebol.net/r3blogs/0011.html.Don't miss some interesting 
comments from the 16 then  posted.

Is this console only for Windows?

Currently yes, I thought making a ncurses-based one too, but my time 
was sucked out by bugfixing.

@Doc : Don'T miss the STACK function too.

Hm, I'll have to confiscate Natasja's laptop again, then

Don't you have a Windows VM on a Linux box?

Yeah, I'll try WINE first, but R# looks awful on it

@DOc : I forgot the link fopr the STACK SPECS and suggested use. 
Here it is  : http://www.rebol.net/r3blogs/0075.html

Gerard: thanks for the links. It is too early for debug hooks, when 
Red IDE will be there, it will be completly integrated with Red, 
so those debug hooks as a public interface will probably be unnecessary.

@Doc : Just to be useful with assymetry in series, do you remember 
this TAKE discussion ? http://www.rebol.net/r3blogs/0082.html

Not terribly confused by boot.red being compiled; I would expect 
anything shipped to be precompiled. Perhaps thinking about it will 
reveal the mystery :-)

Thanks for your last reply Doc. It's interesting you'va such a golbal 
vision !

For the stack, I was planning to add a stack trace on errors display 
in Red, the current REBOL error report is too poor to be able to 
quickly and accurately locate the code lines involved.

Just a small notice: please do not post yet any bug reports about 
the REPL to github, it is too early.

Gerard: reading the comments from your links, all the features people 
mention are on my todo-list for the Red IDE. ;-)

@Gregg : "I'll match donations made by 31-Dec up to USD$200"  I just 
spent 100 Euros a few minutes ago  (about 135 $ CAD) -  Sorry! my 
personal funding is not good enough to give more ... at this moment 
! Xmas is a past thing now so I plan to do better with the New Year 
coming ...

@Doc : Don't despair Doc. We are all behind you - even if I don't 
code for now, as I'm a first day addict, I'll follow your efforts 
regularly and other's too! May be some day I'll be able to send my 
own code ... for something useful !

That's excellent