World: r3wp

Graham: without a tight and higher level integration of lower level 
libs, the benefits of a higher language like REBOL will be reduced 
greatly while you'll pay the performance penality.

The world has enough languages.

So, why do they have languages such as JRuby which in some instances 
can be faster than C Ruby?

I guess it's edge cases, not performances from usual cases (got any 
URL for those benchmarks?)

http://programmingzen.com/2008/12/09/the-great-ruby-shootout-december-2008/

Same function, different syntax. Performance is hardly an issue anymore 
unless you're gaming or modelling

Graham: thanks, interesting reading :-)

Terry: interpreted (REBOL) vs compiled (java) language will still 
have a huge performance gap

I have a PHP library that I've been using personally for 5 or 6 years 
now. I'm sure it's of value to someone, but I just can't be bothered 
to market it to the 500  interested individuals

Graham: my performance mention was for REBOL vs java, not cREBOL 
vs jREBOL

Yeah Doc, but who cares.. what's 2 ms these days?  I/O is the bottleneck.

still, I believe that it would be very hard (if even possible) to 
make a jREBOL with performances matching the C version.

the time gained is in writing .. not execution :)

I would (and do) focus on the future.. HTML5, websockets.. less on 
the tools, more on the results.

Develop mobile apps rather than low level languages.. the market 
is just too small for the latter.

And Moore's law solves the speed problem

Lik e Cocoa.. I've tried looking at that noise a few times now.. 
syntax boggles my mind.. but much of it (iphone apps etc).can be 
done with JS and HTML5..

http://www.sencha.com/

I think Google use Java to write their JS/HTML

Sorry, but Moore's law doesn't allow REBOL to be used as a generic 
programming language, due to poor performances compared to compiled 
ones (like C or java). You can't even write a decent compression 
lib in REBOL (would be too slow).

which is why rebol is dying.. it's a dinosaur.. 10 years ago it was 
hot, but the ball was dropped, and ruby took it's place.  Stupid 
license / closed source killed it.

The only thing is for a few folk here who prefer to use it for low 
end development / back office.

Google use their GWT library.

*uses

So, just call a compression library from the jvm

write in java and compiles to JS/HTML for client side

that's what I said !

Graham: that was just an example of forbidden usage to *REBOL (as 
long as it is interpreted), performance is still relevant despite 
of current CPU speed.

yes especially on web servers.... the number of users of a site can 
quickly slam moore`s law.

Sure .. I understand that for interpreted languages, there are also 
performance downsides .. but the gain is in the time to deliver product

exactly.

That's why people use interpreted languages/scripting languages .. 
 to speed up the development cycle not for writing time critical 
apps

If I write a WP ... it's not computationally expensive ... vs a statistical 
package

WP: WordProcessor?

yes

REBOL is not even fast enough to write a code editor with syntax 
coloring...a WP is out of reach ;-)

My CRM apps .. the bottleneck is I/O not Rebol

That's a fault with the view implementation

So, what advantages do you see being lost with a port to the JVM 
or .Net ?

compactness :)

actually, REBOL is fast enough... its the R2 integration to AGG is 
which is quite poor.

doesn't sound like a big loss .. most people I see already have .net 
or the jre already installed

but Graham, I'm not against a jvm and .net port, it would be a good 
thing

i know, you're just against being the person to do it: :)

well, as I'm not a jvm nor .net fan, I might not be the right person 
for the job ;-)

I might try with .net thought, the VM is more dynamic languages friendly 
than the jvm.

And there is mono

Isn't mono still lagging behind too much?

in terms of supported features

given the choice, I'd use .net instead of java. the only issue is 
that it relies tooo much on the IDE, which becomes so sluggish on 
complex setups that its not funny.

and neither run on the iPad ...