World: r3wp

(Currently, if you look at the JS source, you'll see that names are 
kept from Topaz, so it's easy to debug; I don't think i'll keep this 
in the end for various reasons, but at that point i'll probably write 
some tools for debugging the interpreter itself and any other compiled 
code)

Gabriele, have you tried using Topaz with some kind of app packager 
like PhoneGap?

Not yet, there's no point at this time. But, there's no reason why 
it could not work. It should also be not that difficult to get it 
to work with Appcelerator Titanium.

Oldes in Other languages group - "Hm.. i gave it a try and must say 
that Topaz is much more interesting." So, I would like to ask - is 
there any progress lately? Is Topaz already usable for real-life 
code? An what is an speed overhead in doing some app in Topaz in 
comparison to direct JS execution?

Progress: I added the action! datatype, and am preparing to write 
the "real" compiler. i was hoping to start that this week but it's 
starting to seem very unlikely. sleep is starting to seem unlikely 
this week. :)

Being usable: no.

Speed: currently, you can use the "Fake Topaz" dialect and map 100% 
to JS; the interpreter is of course much slower. When 1.0 is ready: 
i don't think there will be reasons to worry about performance.

What's going to be a usage scenario though? I will have to compile, 
in order to get reasonable performance? I mean - I develop in Topaz, 
but client gets clean JS?

Or is that like this? : When user hits the website, Topaz "libraries" 
are being downloaded (language, compiler, actual app). When you inspect 
the source of the website, you can see real Topaz code, not a JS. 
This code is being compiled by JS engine for further usage, so the 
first run is kind of slower, but then it runs fast = compiled?

Can you make a compiler/interpreter written in JS that can automatically 
handle script blocks that have the right language set?

Brian: yes. See e.g. http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/#scripts

Cool. Nice capability to add to Topaz... :)

Brian: I did that in JR in 2007.

Petr: actually, you have the choice to do whichever you want. For 
a production web site precompiling the performance-critical parts 
is probably the best way.

note that in practice, you'll have a dialect that specifies the whole 
web application, and when you deploy it to production, you get html, 
css, js etc. generated. but, nobody forces you to use the dialect.

How can I try topaz in Windows? Is the try-topaz.html page the only 
method? Is there a way to write a topaz program with a text editor 
and then execute it in some way?

Well, Topaz compiles to or is interpreted in JavaScript at the moment. 
There are several ways to run JS on Windows outside of web browsers 
- it is one of the ActiveScripting languages, so you can use cscript, 
for instance - or you can load the Topaz environment in a web page, 
which can be a local html file with no web server needed. None of 
this is tested yet, of course, so be sure to tell us how well that 
works for you :)

Could I have the option, that editing html page, I would see the 
topaz (on client), and once run, it compiles at that time?

I wrote some notes on how to get and install Topaz at https://github.com/giesse/Project-SnowBall/wiki/Topaz-:-Getting-Started


There a little old but should still work. If not please let me know.

Peter's how to should work. Or, just use a real operating system. 
:P

He was asking about how to run Topaz outside of a browser. All of 
the suggestions I made above apply to Linux as well, except you have 
to install your own JS interpreter instead of using the one that 
comes preinstalled on Windows. So, it's a bit harder on your "real" 
operating system.

Oh, I see, you're installing a JS interpreter on Windows as well 
instead of using the built-in one, or even one that is made for Windows. 
Makes sense.

OK, good, there's a node.js for Windows now (Cygwin doesn't count): 
http://npmjs.org/doc/README.html#Installing-on-Windows-Experimental

A proper installer too, the latest version: http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.6.3/node-v0.6.3.msi

My guess would be that most Linux distros have about five JS interpreters 
preinstalled by now

Brian... Windows is the odd one around, all the other operating systems 
just require installing a package. But, if windows has a built in 
JS interpreter, and if it is standard (and I don't mean the 1998 
standard at that), then you can run Topaz on it.

It appears to be standard (it's the one in IE, so if you have IE9 
it is as standard as V8). However, it doesn't seem to have one of 
the objects or functions that Topaz's bootstrap depends on. Some 
time I'll try to do a proper port. In the meanwhile, Node just requires 
installing a package on Windows (at least as of the last couple months), 
so any Cygwin-related criticism can be ignored now :)

missing object: look at the source of try-topaz.html. what you need 
is probably there.

I don't have string parsing in Topaz yet, but I wanted to illustrate 
how what Endo is asking in the Parse group would be much easier:

Topaz Interpreter - (C) 2011 Gabriele Santilli - MIT License
>> b: ["bla" 1 2 "bla"]
== ["bla" 1 2 "bla"]
>> parse b [collect any [keep number! | skip]]
== [1 2]

Looks simple. Cool!

Cool, I want collect/keep in R3 too :-)

>> parse b [collect any [keep number! | skip]]
== [1 2]


Very interesting. What would be returned if the parse rule was more 
complicated and "failed" (ie would have returned false in REBOL).

If it fails, it returns none.

PARSE works in a similar way to DO, in that it returns the last "result". 
I will document this in detail before a 1.0 release. There is a slide 
in my september presentation about PARSE vs. INTERPRET which explains 
why I went this route.

Thanks, Gabriele

Does it return the subject series at the position of the last result, 
or does it return the last recognized pattern as a value?

Brian, each "rule" has two effect: it advances the series, and returns 
a result. Most rules return the matched value, but not all. Examples:

>> parse [1] [number!]
== 1
>> parse [1 2 3] [number! number! number!]
== 3
>> parse [1 2 3] [some number!]
== 3
>> parse [1 2 3] [object [a: number! b: number! c: number!]]
== object none [
==     a: 1
==     b: 2
==     c: 3
== ]

>> parse [1 2 3] [object [a: number! b: object [c: number! d: number!]]]
== object none [
==     a: 1
==     b: object none [
==         c: 2
==         d: 3
==     ]
== ]

Seems a bit like a cross between a destructuring matcher and regex. 
Useful.

Hi, I am interested into building an maintaining documentation for 
those programming languages based on REBOL.
It would be nice to have a DOCBASE for them.
What I search is:
- Someone ABLE to SETUP the Linux and the Wiki Software
- Someone which would share with me the cost of hosting.
Do you like the idea ?
Write me at [giuseppe-:-chillemi-:-eu]

Note, the Topaz specific wiki is on github: https://github.com/giesse/Project-SnowBall/wiki

Gabriele, you might want to update the Getting Started page on github 
in relation to using Topaz with Windows. The situation is much improved 
now that there is an official Node installer (also includes npm).

so you don't need to mess around with Cygwin anymore

Thanks, I don't really use Windows so it's hard for me to keep up 
to date on that front. Peter already said he's going to update the 
wiki; if anyone else wants to help, I believe github allows a fork 
approach to the wiki as well, otherwise I can add you to the main 
wiki to edit it directly.

Also, you only really need to install node etc. if you want to work 
*on* Topaz, otherwise you can use any web browser to just *use* Topaz, 
like in the try-topaz.html example.

I wonder if it makes sense to allow REBOL to call try-topaz.html, 
although it would be calling JS code? Then you could mix Topaz with 
REBOL for tests, etc.

res: topaz [1 + 2]

a topaz function for REBOL, you mean?

yes, something like that

once I have the compiler, it would certainly be possible to target 
REBOL instead of JS. not sure if that is useful though. :-)

but, i guess you can use CALL to run node.js, or you can get node.js 
to listen to a tcp port and connect to it from REBOL, etc.

I was only thinking about whether it could be used to test topaz 
vs. rebol via one piece of code.

ok