AltME groups: search

I am know the shortcoming of scheme syntax, but I put with them in 
favor of having access to the source code, the ability to have clean 
semantics, the ability to have first-class closure, the hability 
of adding tasking with first-class continuations, and the ability 
of creating any syntax for my dialect using macros. Besides of having 
functional programming style that shields me from side effect and 
having to keep state or context in my head. For me those are more 
important than having a "nice syntax".

This are  the expresive capabilities that I like. But others here 
prefer a different set of expressive feature mainly based on syntax. 
Things like ports, vid, etc. Are not features of language imho. They 
are features of an OS or library. I do like the set that rebol offers, 
but such facilities exists in other languages thru modules or libraries. 
If we are going to compare the language based on their ecosystem 
then we need to count IDEs, Debugger, Profiler, Steppers and Library 
of Modules. But that is not as interesting conversation imo.

So simply claiming that you can't write REBOL in Scheme is irrational, 
because what then makes C so special, as REBOL is not written in 
REBOL. Putting up a *challenge* is childish and side-steps the issue. 
 That is why I resorted to Turing Completness as explanation.  The 
original issue was your dismisal of the power of Scheme macro system.

pekr, that's a good attack angle

well..webbrowsers have "none" vision....as do the browser developers... 
browsers are only products enhanced by the need started in 1994 but 
none of the current developers has asked himself "What does a browser 
actualy do/is for? And is the way we use the the medium (Internet) 
not a little outdated with the current browser?!?".. well with that 
mindset you endup with a product that is reinventing the wheel..and 
eventualy they developed themselfs away, just because the product 
became 1 out of many with nothing new.... Seems none of the current 
developers "Think's!" they all just do what they have learned in 
the classroom.. they all stick with Java C++ and .NET because they 
are told its "good"... (its not.. its clumpsy..big.. Over-orientated 
and eats 50 Gig of memory for a "hello world"... I hope they continue 
doing that ;-) that way Rebol has a real big advantage over the rest 
when they see they ended up at a deadend..

It's interesting to watch the evolution of browser technology. Originally 
the only purpose was to view documents with links (hyper-text). That's 
the main purpose of a browser. Then it was changed to do so many 
other things. Think of products outside the computer industry. What 
happens to products, that are changed to do more and other things, 
than was first the goal? Sometimes it may work, sometimes not.

I buy computer related books only very rarely - they are mostly a 
bloat and I often have feeling that you don't get what you expected. 
I am ok with on-line resources most of the time ...

not a suprice you need books

Not directly a News but interesting: http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm
(Rebol is not listed).

I can't remember if this has been posted before.

So we've got competition - does it remind you of View/VID at least 
a bit? :-) https://openjfx.dev.java.net/Getting_Started_With_JavaFX.html
Now even I could code in JAVA, or so it seems :-)

I see the code:

model.tabLayout = SCROLL;


and there you have a scrollable tab bar. That should be all you need 
to do.

it's the same with LIST-VIEW. people use it, because it's full of 
features and you can code pretty powerful stuff in a few lines of 
code. although I don't consider LIST-VIEW to be a higher level thing, 
but a vital and necessary part of VID.

yes, that is OK, as now I understand what you mean. I first thought, 
that you mean there is one level of abstraction upon what we can 
ever achieve with View plus VID, and it sounded strange to me, as 
I think, that if new VID is cute, we can build pretty much feature 
complete UIs ... well, the toughest part is, how to easily integrate 
some html container? We would have to link to some html runtime, 
if there is something like that ... and that would be probably a 
huge effort ...

haven't needed it yet, so I'm not planning it yet. I'm still only 
implementing features that I need myself. Latest internal version 
can group lines according to a specific data column.

Have you seen a Dabo? Rapid development in Python - http://dabodev.com/
... there are also screencasts ... something like we were talking 
about in regards to video ...

I wouldn't mind a form style, definitely. one that would tie directly 
into a block of strings

 At OSBC last week I gave a Radar talk on current technology trends. 
 The trend of moving traditional desktop applications to massively 
 networked, Web 2.0 online applications like Google Docs is well-known. 
 The problem is, a web browser is a terribly limited platform for 
 application development, and JavaScript is a less-than-fully-featured 
 language....
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/beyond_the_brow.html

I'm watching an interview with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates that was 
posted on http://d5.allthingsd.com/yesterday. Jobs makes an interesting 
note at how much better network applications perform than web2.0 
pages, in context with Google Maps on the iPhone. I had thought that 
it was in fact a web2.0 thing in the iPhone.

isn't anything google is doing actually a web 2.0?

Well, you might be locked into precisely ajax, XML and managing session 
data in a non-persistent way, which is not optimal if you're building 
an application. We already know that, we're REBOLers. :-) He talks 
also about maintaining data persistence across sessions.

Bad design, I guess. but you have to remember that AJAX is a huge 
hack on top of a non-persistent protocol. it's by definition harder 
to do these things, than with a clean implementation like REBOL/Services.

imagine a P2P client in AJAX...

Previously posted (and perhaps lost in the flurry) in the I'm New 
group: Google announces its method of making web apps run offline, 
hence a lurch toward the x-internet:
http://gearsblog.blogspot.com/

<<The Gears team believes in the open web and the simple technologies 
it is built on, and we didn't want to change that. So Gears is an 
incremental improvement to the web as it is today. It adds just enough 
to AJAX to make current web applications work offline.>>

I'd say the terms [simple technology / AJAX / incremental improvement] 
are combinable to make several new oxymorons.

I think simple means what a community knows. AJAX etc, once learned, 
is "simple". Change to much and you loose a lot of people. Maybe 
"simple" should be replaced with - thought "beruhigend" - humm, http://www.dict.cc/?s=beruhigend, 
i guess i pick "reassuring", but "sedative" fits well from another 
angle^^

Making the *browser* the application platform is a nice idea.
But a browser is under-resourced, not designed for that role.

And (like desktop operating systems) there are multiple versions: 
IE, FF, Opera, Safari etc.
That is all problematical.

Millions are being thrown at the problem. But not much evidence that 
it is feasible.

rebol really is a browser in the same sense of why people use web 
browsers.  in fact rebol is a rebol language browser, and IE is an 
html browser.  both intepret a set of specifications.  Rebol has 
all the same limitations of a browser, it implements only a subset 
of what can be done by an OS by default.    but the only real advantage 
REBOL has over "the web" (not to mix up with "internet") is that 
all parts of the development are in the same language, from  layout, 
stylesheet, interactivity, DB, all of this is coded using one single 
language.

but the fact that its an Abstraction layer which deals with all parts 
of interfacing an abstract thing like a computer to a human is why 
its so compelling... you can forget about sooooo much things and 
just concentrate on DOing stuff.

Not rebol, ios. Offline, quick distribution, a desktop for files 
and programms.

volker, rebol is a platform, just like the browsers.

a browser has no "desktop"

it just loads html and runs it...  providing a gui space, an execution 
space ... all is defined within the html source.  just like a rebol 
app.

You need that to deal with multiple "installations"/vendors of a 
webpage/script

no, a desktop is a virtualisation of a desk litterally.  there are 
html desktops too ("EYE OS")

So when someone suggests a better solution than incremental browser-improvements, 
i know one. I know both. The best incremental stuff, which gets attention, 
and the way it should work. Links to "rebuilds it radically better" 
are usually nothing new.

a $99 pc with all data stored on Amzon S3 for $12 a month! http://www.zonbu.com/home/index.htm

I have played with a few ASUS computers, they feel like toys.  Know 
anyone that has a good one?


800x600, sorry, NO!


All I want is my current computer, but with LESS stuff:

Fujitsu P7020

24 cm wide
1280x768
1.2 G

It kicks ass, ven gets about 8 hours batt from the two bays.
very small.



What I want is this same computer but even thinner, and with no harddrive 
(just 40Gigs of SD cards).

Other than a few extra buttons I would like to add (like physical 
volume control, and dedicated page buttons) I'm really happy with 
this computer.  It travels around the world with me.

may I ask what in particular is "pretty cool" there? Half of the 
demo is about a grid. Yes, in terms of html (but this is not html, 
this is simply js) it is probably good one, but Henrik's grid already 
has many more features (yet some lacking)

other than that, it shows nearly nothing special? We should not allow 
such stuff to impress us, just because, wow, this is possible in 
browsers? We should think - why do browsers suck bad way, that it 
takes 10 years to get such a features?

they might pretty much be lucky, that JS got under standards, because 
back in NS 4.9 days it was a mess ...

Seems very painful to setup a js grid

If the REBOL plugin is used to show the REBOL desktop, and I start 
a REBOL script there (one of the demos for example). Will the script 
be kept inside the browser, or will it be like if I started the script 
from REBOL in a normal way?

the rebol desktop is a bug ...

anyone seen Blazing Saddles? "The REBOL desktop is a DONNNGGGG!" 
:-) Kinda gives the same reaction, I think.

What type of dolt would build a 100% web application?!?

It really looks nice but I don't get it why the add sutff like YouTube? 
That's really of no value... I want a smartphone helping me to organiza 
myself better, to collaborte etc. I don't need a "how-to-waste-your-time" 
gadget.

Asus Eee PC review - http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Hands_on_with_the_ASUS_Eee/
  .... would it be a good target for View? :-)

Very cute..................a lot like my P7010.  Will be a great 
machine for Qtask...

Eee would be a good target for Syllable. :-) There are several tiny 
machines coming out that can use a tiny operating system

For writing a RIA research article, I've spent 10 hours studing Curl, 
that didn't make me an expert, but so far:

1. I like the content-centric programming, it's kind of like MakeDoc 
+ RSP + RTF.

2. The macro facility seems powerful, which makes homemade DSL possible, 
I guess.
3. APIs seem complete.
4. The 2D and 3D rendering engine uses hardware-acceleration.
5. It's a Functional Language.
6. Unicode, Yes, even Curl supports Unicode.

Like I said, I am not an expert, so any of the items listed above 
could be wrong. Here is a DDJ article http://www.ddj.com/dept/architect/184413224

It is a longtime since I tried it.. But I recall it had fantastic 
support for units (weights, measures, distance) and intelligent conversion 
between them . But I can't find a link to any docs that show this 
anymore

The Curl doc is not in HTML/PDF formats. It's a Curl Applet itself. 
After downloading and Installing the Curl IDE, you'll have the Curl 
document, which is an applet, like I said. You can find some interesting 
2D / 3D Curl applets in the curl.com web site. I am impressed by 
its 2D / 3D ability.

The curl people spammed us a few years ago

a lot of people on the rebol mailing list were spammed by them

we should watch Rentrak in Portland, OR and deviantArt.com  as they 
have people open to languages - and it is my impression there is 
much more Ruby and Python happening in Los Angeles ... of course 
 Io lang will be fine because they have a good core community who 
chat daily (IRC) and becasue Steve ignores my suggestions ;-)

The openmoko interview is listed at the Chaos Computer club germany 
website...  a coinsidence that you mention it btw...

The problem with lots of cellphone based on "linux" is that linux 
is not accesable at all... with the openmoko project Linux is also 
the OS but is fully usable for programming... They use a OEM phone 
hardware frmo [FIC]..openmoko is is the OS on top of Linux and is 
fairly based on GTK... (which is a stupid choise...) But because 
everything need to be OPEN in the openmoko project they selected 
GTK. Also Hardware-specs are OPEN. The Phone is already working !!! 
test version where tested in March this year... development is strong 
going...

The funny thing about this project is that a time of opening their 
FORUM-Websote they had instatly 3000 registered users online ;-)

http://www.losethos.com/<--- now here is a weird little operating 
system. It looks quite bad actually, but I guess Rebol 3 would be 
in direct competition with this, if Wildman will be done for standard 
PCs.

and I don't understand it - they went one step back - they call it 
a "desktop integration" - basically they let their plug-in to run 
outside the browser, like we have with View installed for ages. They 
ask you, if you want to place "airlet" app icon on the desktop :-) 
I hope we beat them :-)

Petr;  We really have to get you running GNU/Linux.  :)


This isn't really worthy of posting in Tech News, but I get a sneaky 
suspicion that with the lack luster Vista release, MS is going to 
get angry and start bullying a lot more than before.  We of the alternative 
universe will need to fortify the battlements or prepare to be assimilated. 
 2007/2008 could see the biggest FUD fight yet.  Or maybe not.  I 
do have a skewed view of the situation now-a-days, very one-sided. 
 My side...the right side...the light side.  :)

You guys really need to take a closer look at Kommonwealth.

Worked after a FF restart.

Python 3.0a1 Release: August 31st, 2007
http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.0/

Online Documentation is updated twice a day
http://docs.python.org/dev/3.0/

That's very interesting, all the language designers working on the 
next version : Python 3, Perl 6, and of course Rebol 3, hoping to 
eliminate the mistakes of early design, and ready to break compatibility 
with the previous version for the sake of a brighter future.

I found the Python news interesting because Guido plans on maintaining 
the 2.x line for a while even after 3.0 has been released. Doing 
more than just bug fixes, I mean. It will be interesting to see how 
that works out.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/31/researchers-develop-a-360-degree-holographic-display/

Jerry;  Check out the Dialects forum.  Geomol has written a starter 
bbcbasic interpretter in REBOL.

a clean way to make heat

just use a resistor if you want heat from electricity ;)

I think the media just gets so hyped up on the headline idea of water 
as a fuel source.  They do more damage than good!

For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuel_celllook under 
lawsuit

People seem to believe that there is talk about a perpetual motion 
machine, which of course isn't true. Same with the water fuel cell, 
which has a strange and sad story, but seems to be moving forward 
now.

Converting water into something burnable with radiowaves is a big 
thing. It's a new discovery, which is something _really_ rare these 
days. Something that can open up new fields of science. If you can 
do this with water, what can you do with other liquids/gases?

because every visit to your page will be logged on some microsoft 
project site, whatever it is. And I don't want to click on dogs and 
cats as I don't want to rewrite crypted texts. I'm human, not a robot 
so why to do that? I still prefere other methods how to avaid spam. 
Which is for example for inserted by javascript and or IP blocking 
on the server side if someone relly sucks (and I never had to do 
that)

http://www.regdeveloper.com/2007/09/13/ubuntu_jeos_vmware/


The Ubuntu developers are releasing a stripped down version just 
to run vmware

Remember the mac guy pc guy commercial? there is a java guy and ruby 
guy video. it's so funny http://www.grabtherail.com/ImRuby.html

We probably should make a commercials like this.
Hello I REBOL
 "and I am Ruby" ... 
Making funny video is one of the good ways to get noticed.

I got classified as a bot when I tried the asirra test :(

Robert, not sure if you want a Virtual Debian or a Host Debian, but 
check this small page.  Note: I've not  tried any virtualization 
myself.  Live dangerously and practice unprotected computing.  :)

http://linux.simple.be/vmware/More deets at http://www.howtoforge.com/debian_etch_vmware_server_howto
and finally as a appliance http://www.visoracle.com/download/debian/

A new kind to streamline public finances...

Yep,  I hope this ruling puts the kibosh on the possiblity of hardware 
manufacturers being forced to sign non-disclosure agreements if they 
want drivers to function on Windows with DRM.  GNU/Linux would quickly 
start to lose out if that happens en masse.  Today is a good news 
day in my biased and perhaps  naive opinion.

http://www.ajaxwindows.com/for those missing windows on a browser...

I wondered...so that's what they get for donating 35 coders... a 
little bit of press and some branding.  :)

http://unicap-imaging.org/unicap_eeepc.htm<--- this looks like a 
nice and interesting machine.

WebRunner -

WebRunner is a simple XULRunner based browser that hosts web applications 
without the normal web browser user interface. WebRunner is based 
on a concept called Site Specific Browsers (SSB). An SSB is an application 
with an embedded browser designed to work exclusively with a single 
web application.
http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner

A bare metal Linux box that boots up key apps [email, browser] in 
seconds:
http://www.splashtop.com/index.php
Just what the average home user needs :-)

Thta's a bargain at the current euro-$ exchange rate ;-)

Terry;  I'm not sure of future plans, but no.  user.r was gifted 
the space and invites to members will remain at zero cost (until 
I'm told otherwise - again I'm not in on their business planning. 
The offer from Qtask was a gift).  So it's more like membership with 
user.r on Qtask is like getting a $75 a month bonus.   As a matter 
of fact, I want to move the current user.r Chat PITL project to Qtask 
sometime this weekend.  You can't beat Qtask for project management. 
  And being the friendly fence sitter...you can't really beat kommonwealth 
for the 'fun social side' that user.r should also portrait.  Both 
sites are suffering neglect right now, but that will change.

 Take a peek under your Settings in Gmail, and click into your 'Forwarding 
 and POP IMAP' tab to see if you are one of the lucky ones who got 
 IMAP first.

Hecl - scripting language for cell phones - http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/creating_a_simple_application_with_hecl

So what does everyone think about the Everex/Wal-Mart gOS $200 Green 
PC?   GNU/Linux getting into the homes of people that can afford 
a $200 PC (sans tube).  Tech support - here we come  :)  And it's 
weird; that's like 50 bucks Canadian now.  A true reversal of fortunes 
is upon us...can you feel it?


http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139196-c,fullfeaturednotebooks/article.html


I like the part about "...Vista has done a lot of damage to the low-end 
PC market..."   Yeah!  I want to be the tech support guy for the 
low-end market.  Yeah!  Nothing beats working for cigarettes and 
beer.

I shouldn't joke too loud.  The working poor have always been the 
people I feel the most comfortable hanging out with.  I think it's 
why I spew so much here on Altme.  Day to day it's the only place 
I can talk nerd and not risk a wedgie.  :)

Kaj;  Some of the articles mention that Everex tried with a sub $400 
Vista machine.  (Same hardware, but with Windows license fees bumping 
the price).  Too many returns...which is where I think the "low-end 
PC market" quote originated.

http://www.buglabs.net/productsMay not be all that new, but looks 
like a great platform for embedded R3!

nearly. Now they just need to make Python a 600K download and we're 
set.

Python's a nice language, but its kitchen sink approach to libraries 
is both a blessing and a burden :-)

What we should take a look at  is the AVbin http://code.google.com/p/avbin/

Pekr, I posted this news a week ago :)

yuck, what a mess of XML files

Interesting that they think a virtual colossus on Pentium II laptop 
( are there such things still? ) would run at the same speed as the 
original at Bletchley Park http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7094881.stm

I remember when Pentiums were the new Black, it was said the Colossus 
emulator (in C under windows, I guess) was far slower than the real 
thing (specialist hardware designed for the task on a war economy 
budget).

Looks like better languages, more modern hardware and (crucially) 
more recent algorithms means the Colossus can be finally retired:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/16/german_code_breaker_defeats_colossus/