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A bit surprizing move, I guess that Red project is stimulating competition. 
:-)

Graham from Red - "Karl has failed to engage with the Rebol community 
as far as I can see."


Personally, I have found Karl very approachable and responsive on 
the Boron MIL.

Not really. The main way that I learn a programming platform is to 
view the source, though on platforms where the source is not available 
(as for proprietary platforms like Delphi) or too complex to be of 
use (C++ compilers, office suites, most operating systems) then I 
try to go by the docs and experimentation. If I want to contribute, 
I need to see the source. However, if I learn anything by looking 
at the source, I have to be careful about how I apply that knowledge 
elsewhere if I might violate a license by doing so. So I use Linux, 
Java, OpenOffice and GCC like they are black boxes with no sources 
available, only because they are useful enough to be worth using 
without really learning from them. I wish I could contribute to Boron, 
but it might interfere with my ability to contribute to REBOL and 
Red. And I already have a good enough semi-black box in R3.

I transformed both, to-native (the first link) and from-native (second 
one) although I know the binary to decimal version is not needed 
for the Red project... it was just to make it complete. Btw.. I think 
it could be optimised as logic operation are faster than pure math.

Q: Will this language be an open or closed source project?


A: Long answer: The plan is to fully open source it at some point, 
when version 1 is ready. Host depending sources are open in the alpha 
release, and it may make sense to open source more and more along 
the way, like sources for the different datatypes. The IT world is 
constantly changing. My nephew just went to the Devoxx Java conference 
in Belgium. Everybody had portable Mac computers. That was very different 
just a few years ago. Who knows, what devices we'll use in 5 years? 
I like to bring my software with me to new platforms. To be able 
to support new platforms faster, open source is a good thing. But 
some things needs to be fulfilled, before I'll open source it all.

1. This isn't a hobby project. I've invested a lot of time and work 
in this project, and I need to find a way to get something back from 
all that. One option is to have a good manual ready for developers 
to buy, open source it to get a lot of developers interested, and 
make a profit that way. There may be other ways (like someone or 
some company paying me to open source or make projects in World).

2. I need to know more about the consequences of open sourcing it, 
so I can avoid any nasty surprises. Knowing more from other similar 
projects could help. I need to figure out a proper license.

3. Even if I keep the sources simple and clean, I would like to clean 
up even more, before it can be open sourced.

A: Short answer: Currently it's partly open source.

Q: What is the main target?

A: The World prompt is a very powerful tool. Being what is known 
as "network transparent" helps in the era of the Internet. Server 
scripting and client scripting are obvious uses. The ability to easily 
make dialects makes it possible to wrap the language around the problem 
instead of trying to change the problem to fit the language. Interfacing 
with other technologies ... see "Introduction" on http://world-lang.org
in a few days.

Q: Is it closer to R2, R3, RED, Topaz architecture?

A: World run its code within a custom made virtual machine (VM). 
Compiling in World compiles World sources to this VM. This happen 
when source code is run or if explicitly compiled. REBOL is always 
interpreted (AFAIK), so that's different. I'm far from an expert 
in Red and Topaz, but as I understand it, Topaz is compiled/translated 
to JavaScript. So the JavaScript engine can be seen as the VM in 
World. And Red is compiled to native code, so that's different too. 
As I see it, all these languages work differently and can complement 
each other. (Help me here, if I'm wrong in any of this.)

Q: What was the main motivation, aka - why yet another language?

A: After I've learned REBOL, I find it frustrating to program in 
most (all) other languages. The difference is like when humans moved 
from carving words in stones to using a printing press a la Gutenberg. 
Then I found, I couldn't complete projects like my Canvas RPaint 
program on all major platforms (Win32, OS X and Linux), I couldn't 
run my code on new portable devices, and I needed better performance 
with scientific applications. With my background in graphics, music 
and science, I expect the language to develop into those areas.


Q: If (you) don't have any other target, why don't you work on Red? 
Or fork a project from Red?

A: I started initial work on World in late March 2009. The first 
post in the Red group here in AltME is from 27-Feb-2011. At that 
time, World was more than 7'000 lines of C.

Thanks for all your work on World, and the QA John. It's very exciting.


As far as the outrageous bytecode size, from one who hates bloat 
as much as the rest of you here, I am happy to make certain tradeoffs 
in return for other benefits. If I have the choice of REBOL, World, 
Red, and Topaz as "mindset compatible" languages, I can choose which 
one to use for a given purpose. Yes, that opens up other questions 
and issues, but I'm happy to see more REBOL-like langauges.

Nenad uses Github issues for bug and feature request tracking for 
Red though perhaps the wiki would be better for a List of REBOL incompatabilities?

It comes as surprise you new REBOL inspired new language. It is inevitable 
that things like TOPAZ and RED are created after the long absence 
of CARL. There is a stong need from the market and the market is 
US programmers which cannot wait any longer.

It's actually a lot like Linux. Every distro has something you need, 
but none of them has everything you need. If I want to build the 
Russian Syllable website, I can only use R3. If I need system integration 
and speed, I can only use Red. If I need to write web apps, only 
Topaz targets that. If I need open source, I can only use half of 
them. If I need dynamic binding, I can only use the interpreters. 
If I need infix operators, I can't use Boron, although I could use 
its predecessor. Etcetera ad nauseum

Red solves it by covering everything with two

Ok  people, look at the red light :)
Flashhhhhhh !!!!

As for me - I do care about the Red - I already donate, and I will 
do so in next few weeks again. In opposition to you, I don't care 
in ANY closed efforts again. I don't care about RT anymore. Carl 
is an ufo :-) I can't accept  ANYONE, behaving like he is. Weren't 
we supposed to know the resolution of our situation? This is total 
crap - Saphirion my ass - Carl is just making joke of us all ...

Gregg wrote in group #Red: "World has similar goals I believe."


Yes. To clarify: There is World and there is World/Cortex. World 
is written in C and the Cortex extension is written in World. It's 
a design goal to have as little as possible in the C part, but because 
it's also a goal to have good performance, especially with math stuff, 
some functions are native (written in C), which could have been mezzanines 
(written in World), like ABS, COS, SIN, TAN (all small functions 
in C).


But large functions like PARSE and SORT and many other functions 
are part of the Cortex extension, so they're written in World and 
is therefore open source.


With the good support for dynamic loaded libraries, good performace 
with heavier functions can be achieved that way.


And then there is the REBOL extension (in the World file %rebol.w), 
which is there to hold further extensions and definitions needed 
to run REBOL scripts. Those are not in the Cortex extension, because 
I disagree with some of the REBOL design decisions, and because I 
would like the Cortex extension not to be too large.


For me, World and Cortex has the higher priority, the REBOL extension 
the lower priority, meaning I use more time on finishing World/Cortex 
for now.