World: r3wp

They're in chat. If you're interested please review the changes, 
or complain here if you like.

How about a web page?  Not everyone who uses R2 is on chat .. in 
fact most are not

Isn't the documentation system able to generate docs automatically 
 from help?

We can ask Carl about that. The R2 docs aren't updated yet afaik, 
aside from the format conversion that Carl just went through.

R2/Forward doesn't have a web page - all the docs are in the source, 
or the R3 docs. The R3 docs should work for almost all of the functions 
in R2/Forward, at least to the extent that the R3 docs are current 
and complete.

Realistically R3 is not going to be stable for another year or more 
... so the R2 docs should be updated

Realistically we need a policy for how much of the R2 and R3 docs 
are going to be shared, to avoid duplicating work. There is a discussion 
about that on Carl's blog now. Once we have a policy we can organize 
and update the docs.

All of the new functions in 2.7.7 and 2.7.8 (except THROW-ERROR) 
are backports from R3 - that is the development path for new R2 mezzanine 
functions. The rest is fixes and/or improvements to existing functions.

The same will likely be the case for future releases too, at least 
in the areas where R2 and R3 are comparable (not GUI, database, ports, 
/Library, etc.). Well see though.

Anyone who is directly participating in the development of R2 is 
in chat - that's where the source is submitted. That doesn't rule 
out indirect participation though, in the form of forwarded fixes, 
feedback, advice, bug tickets, whatever :)

>> do %json.r
Script: "JSON to Rebol converter" (21-Apr-2008)
>> text: {print "hello"}
== {print "hello"}
>> a: rebol-to-json make object! [ t: text ]
== {{"t": "print \\"hello\\""}}
>> json-to-rebol a
** User Error: Invalid JSON string. Near: <end of input>
** Near: json-to-rebol a

Gregg??

Graham I suggest you use Chris's http://www.ross-gill.com/r/altjson.html
  text: {print "hello"}              
;   {print "hello"}
  a: to-json make object! [ t: text ]
;   {{"t":"print \"hello\""}}
  probe load-json a                  
make object! [
    t: {print "hello"}
]

sounds like a good idea!

Looks like there is an escaping bug in rebol-to-json. I'll look into 
it.

I have a fixed version of %json.r. Do you want it Graham? I'll also 
send it to Douglas Crockford to post on JSON.org.


Thanks for catching that. The naive escaping has been there all along.

Hey, can you move this to Core, JavaScript or Parse? This group is 
for discussing R2 releases.

Sure thing.

No offense intended, thanks.

None taken.

Any reason why I can't change this http://rebol.wik.is/Protocols/Secure_Smtp
from

			port/user: port/user
			port/pass: port/pass
			; do authn if needed

to
			; fix: only ask once if the user used set-net ask
			port/user: system/schemes/esmtp/user
			port/pass: system/schemes/esmtp/pass

so I don't have to fix set-net as well??

Why secure does not accept

Why secure does not accept block! argument?
secure [net allow] ;works
b: [net allow]
secure b ;fails

try  "secure :b"

it works! thanks a lot. But it is not documented in core.pdf

>> secure b
** Script Error: Invalid argument: b
** Near: secure b
b was treated as a word like 'allow   'ask ,
so use :b instead, to get its value

I see. but help text says it accepts word! and block! so it is confusing.

the feature of rebol that function can accept a word without evaluating 
it even if it's an action word makes rebol more nice to look at but 
at cases as this it can cause confusion

without it you would have to ad ' in this case, liek this >> foreach 
'item block [ print item ]

it's a little less nice looking but it would be more uniform and 
logical .. the way of "least surprise"


because now when you write your own functions liek map-each you don't 
know or make it look like foreach with or make all custom functions 
not accept active words which makes your code more systematic and 
easyer to understand , but then your function is not in style with 
rebol's foreach forall ..etc

my vote would be to not have the option to to do >> foreach item 
block [ pring item ] .. it would make a language more uniform , although 
a little less cool :)

I don't think it will be accepted.

it's just a "vote". I don't expect them to change the language

I vote nay.

and what is your reason for nay  :)

I like lit-word arguments - they are very useful. Uniformity is overrated.

Lit-word arguments allow you to use functions to fake the kind of 
stuff that other languages need syntax for.

In some ways, REBOL is more uniform than most languages (other than 
Lisp without macros or special forms).

How is this related to R2 releases?

yes, I agree that this makes rebol's ordinary functions look like 
other languages' syntax / special forms .. that's why I said it's 
cool and confusing :) .. I didn't notice this is only for releases 
.. I was replying to Endo

Yeah, we're trying to keep this group on topic. We haven't written 
a DevBase chat client for R2 yet, so the development discussions 
of R2 releases are often in this group. Some people don't like to 
use chat, even if not using it limits the extent to which they can 
participate in R2 development (they can't submit changes directly, 
for instance).

I wouldn't want to lose lit-words, but they do create issues at times.

moved to Core

If anybody has archived some historical versions of REBOL, I'd be 
grateful if you contact me by private message. Specifically, I'd 
be looking for 2.3.* for Linux x86 and 2.5.0 for Linux, but any version 
pre-2.3.0 would also be great.

I still have 2.3.0 for Win32 lying around, but the Linux versions 
seem to have vanished into bit nirvana :)

sparc ?

I think I have an old Solaris version around somewhere

Sure, if you have it handy :)

Especially if it is pre-2.3 :)

What year was 2.3 ?

I have Solaris versions with date stamps ( the date I copied them 
to the server ) of 2000, 2001, and 2003.  I think these versions 
were susceptible to creating zombie dns processes