World: r4wp

ZIP support would be great. I've wanted it for a long time, but want 
more than just a "compress this value" function. i.e. it needs to 
work like a port or have an interface that lets us navigate, list, 
etc.

The ZIP format is supposed to be like a directory/file structure. 
I would rather have it supported as a zip:// port scheme, like file:// 
is for files and directories.

It's not a single-stream model like zlib or gzip - those would be 
better supported by COMPRESS and DECOMPRESS.

Agreed.

BrianH, yup I realized how it works now and I even fixed the /gzip 
quirks in DECOMPRESS...so I can decompress zip chunks with CRC32 
checksums now. But there is still one annoying bug, that the current 
zlib code doesn't handle the CRC32 calculation well on bigger files 
than 32kB :-/ Now I'm trying to fix it so the crc32() calls works 
in the "CRC running" mode where the final CRC32 is calcualted from 
smaller chunks of data which a file consists of.

I'll hopefully push this on github If I manage to fix it succesfully.

Do you think that it is feasible to change the current zlib to a 
more recent version or something else that is better? Keep in mind 
that I would want that zip:// scheme to exist eventually, even if 
I have to write it myself.

We would still need to be able to compress and decompress in a R2-compatible 
way, even if it's optional, not the default. For interoperability.

BrianH: I think we should change the /GZIP refinement to /CRC32 so 
it is independent of the format. Then we can create mezanine/scheme 
support code for various higher-level formats (ZIP, GZIP etc.) at 
the REBOL scripting level.

BTW I have finally fixed the current /GZIP refinement problems so 
now I'm able to ZIP/UNZIP uzing rebol script without the 'PNG load 
hack' that is on rebol.org. In fact I modified the rebzip.r to work 
with R3 and the ZIP/UNZIP operations are now "instant" when comparing 
to the R2 version. So I guess this is a good proof we can write fiast 
zip:// scheme with just the current COMPRESS/DECOMPRESS natives.

Regarding the zlib code change/update. I think that is feasible. 
We could try to use the latest version of ZLIB library (hope the 
licensing is ok, haven't checked that) or look at the MINIZ compression 
library (check it on: http://code.google.com/p/miniz/looks interesting 
as it could be more lightweight)

Licensing seems OK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zlib_License

Miniz license is even better (public domain).

cool, so looks like we could try to replace the old code in the future 
with these and see if it makes R3 better.

Is anyone working on the mezzes CHANGES and UPGRADE ?

When run from the new builds, they simply head back to rebol.com 
and do not show the latest goodies from the github.

That's great news Cyphre! Thanks for pursuing it.

I agree on the refinement name as well, maybe adding a note about 
gzip in the doc string.

Miniz looks nice. Smaller is better for something we're statically 
linking, and the license works too. How is the error reporting and 
recovery? That has been a problem with DECOMPRESS.

I already voiced my agreement on the checksum refinement change. 
I'm on the fence whether it should be /crc32 or /type 'crc32.

Nice, miniz does streaming (de)compression too. Async compress port 
anyone?

yes! :-)

and async parse! :-)

The LiveCode KickStarter campaign to first re-structure the code, 
make it easy to accpept contributions, build a new IDE and some modernisation 
has raised over 500,000 GBP (more than 750,000 USD).


Same Carl didn't try something along those lines before releasing 
REBOL 3.

Same  -> shame

Perhaps it's not too late?

Oops. it has only raised 475,000 GBP, still more than 750,000 USD

How the heck did they manage that? It was not looking like it was 
going to make it not too long ago.

I think a lot of people must have watied until it looked as though 
it was going to succeed.

The big numbers raised are due in the main by their forward selling 
commercial licences. LiveCode will be dual licenced GPL & Commercial 
licence.

I don't think Carl could have rasied that much but a well run campaign 
may well have been able to raise enough to set up a solid infrastructure 
for the REBOL 3 opn source project. I think 50,000 USD would be in 
reach.

It's actually pretty easy to see how they managed it. It was:

- A multi-language IDE (not a programming language, people already 
get those for free)
- With a GUI with an emphasis on modern graphic design (pretty!)
- With a fancy demo (more pretty!)

- With an initial focus on programming languages and development 
platforms that are already popular (built-in customer base)


Powerful IDEs are some of the only development tools that people 
are still willing to pay money for (i.e. Visual Studio). Most people 
can't choose what language they write in, but they more often can 
choose their IDE. And for crappy-but-IDE-friendly languages, an IDE 
can make all the difference in your productivity. They're not as 
helpful for really powerful extensible languages like Rebol or Perl, 
unless the language is so bad that just about anything would help 
(Perl). Plus, since an IDE is an end-user app you can afford to GPL 
it, since the only stuff built on it are add-ons - that doesn't work 
for programming languages unless they have a clear distinction between 
user code and built-in code that is distinct enough to not violate 
the GPL distinctions, because most of the competition is permissive 
- and without the GPL restrictions there is nothing to sell, so there 
is no business model to get a return on investment.


It's nice to point to other open source projects and say "See! We 
could have done that!" but unless those are comparable projects their 
success isn't comparable either.

How many investors did it take to raise that much money? Because 
if it was more than 100, that goes past the expected limit of how 
many people would have been willing to invest in the Rebol programming 
language. Don't underestimate the power of popularity.

Programming language projects for (unfairly) unpopular programming 
languages are not commercial endeavors anymore, they're charities. 
GPL/commercial programming languages that might possibly GPL-infect 
the user programs are just dead now - they're not even sad anymore. 
It doesn't matter if the license is carefully arranged to make user 
programs not affected; most users aren't lawyers and there are much 
more unambiguously permissive no-cost alternatives out there that 
might be good enough, and some of them are popular.

Don't knock charities though. Charities can be very successful if 
they get enough industry support. Python, Perl and GCC are made by 
charities.

And it doesn't take a lot to run a programming language charity for 
a somewhat minimalist language. You don't need a lot of people to 
get the job done. Something maximalist like .NET or Java (when you 
include their runtime libraries) can need a lot of people, but something 
small like Rebol or Red doesn't need as much. You can get enough 
people to fund development even for a charity project just by being 
useful enough.

LiveCode is not a multi-language IDE. The IDE supports one langauge 
LIveCode.which is a descendant of xTalk.

Oh, I was getting it mixed up with the recent successful IDE launch 
on Kickstarter. Let me check.

OK, so it's a single-language IDE aimed primarily at the education 
market, still with a nice-looking GUI if not as modern, with an appeal 
based on Apple-fan nostalgia for HyperCard. That's a tougher sell, 
but since it's education market you can get away with GPL/commercial, 
and since it's Apple-nostalgia you can raise that much money from 
merely thousands of investors instead of the millions that you'd 
need if you were going for a less-well-off target market. Makes sense, 
but it's still nice to see.

(Sorry, can't edit here) millions -> many tens of thousands

I helps that it is an established commercial product for the development 
of mobile apps. People still buy tools for mobile app development, 
though GPL/commercial development programming languages are still 
pretty rare now even there.

Looks like we have the education market to blame for the GPL/commercial 
model. I wish them luck.

Brian, maybe you were thinking of LightTable
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table

It also did pretty well.

Yup, that was it.

Oh, LiveCode specifically makes the apps you make with it GPLv3 unless 
you buy the commercial version. Education market...

Or just buy the product.

Livecode is a great tool - the values remind me a low  of what made 
REBOL attractive years ago.  It's just a really productive and well 
designed tool, easy to use, powerful, cross platform (iOS, Android, 
Windows, Mac, Linux, server), it's SIMPLE and geared towards getting 
work accomplished.  That's it's only goal, and the company has always 
tried to make good real-world choices about productivity.  And they're 
keeping the system modern and relevent.  The REBOL community would 
be helped by watching what they do...

low -> lot

Well, we can't follow their business model, but there is a lot of 
other stuff we can learn from them.

As good as REBOL is it could use a good IDE environment.  AmigaVision 
comes to mind.  I would be interested to see whether some large chunks 
of change were invested to put them over the top.  Right now R3 needs 
a message. What makes it special and valuable. What vision does it 
conjure up.

As great as Livecode is, REBOL's language model is still better, 
simpler, more powerful.

It's got more potential