AltME groups: search

Just a week or so ago I seem to remember starting a group called 
"Hitler" (which someone renamed Quagmire…I think Hitler is still 
a better name).


The whole reasons being that anyone with a strong enjoyment of debate, 
that has am opinion will eventually pull a thread off topic.  It 
is natural.


I simply wanted to offer a method in our community here to push people 
to take it "out of the room" so to speak.


In our office we have a large plastic pig we call the tangent pig. 
 If during a meeting anyone deems the conversation to have strayed 
off topic, we had them the plastic pig, since in order to be on a 
tangent, you must have the pig in your hand.  It works the other 
way also, if you want to pull a tangent, jump for the pig.  It works. 
 Tangents are quick.

Just a comment regarding Gregg's last announcement... your point 
is much clearer, thank you... however, I tend to disagree.. and here's 
why.. 

Since the beginning of February, 94 different Rebols (which some 
call Rebolers) have visited this world.  I would say that the 80/20 
rule would be fairly accurate, where 80% of the posts are made by 
20% of the community.  I'm not exactly sure what the exact percentages 
would be, but I would say that well over half rarely, if ever, say 
a word.   I would like to hear from a few more of these folks .. 
about anything.. who are they?.. what do they do?  And if some Rebol 
chat comes from that.. all the better.  I'd like to see an eagerness 
to participate at whatever level.   


People are drawn here because of a common  interest.. Rebol.  But 
what keeps them coming back?  Is it the pure Rebol conversations? 
 I don't think so.  If that were the case, then where is the Rebol-view 
world?  That used to be the main hang out? I for one, stopped going 
there because it became dry, old, boring and censored.  I preferred 
this world because it DIDN'T have the rules.. the conversations were 
much more free and engaging.. both Rebol and non-Rebol.   I've found 
the business / marketing discussions particularily interesting.  
The 'debates' on evolution vs. creation have been stimulating TO 
ME... maybe not to you.


Rebol needs all the community it can get.  I would make few f any 
'rules', (other than the obvious).  If you want pure Rebol, then 
fire-up Rebol-view and have at it.. But if "this is not our world", 
then what the hell am I doing here?


My online community is where I touch base to see whether I'm on the 
right track, where I get support and advice, and where I learn and 
teach. In the eyes of its many users, online communication is a powerful 
medium for like-minded individuals to form virtual communities that 
provide mutual support, advice and identity.

Communications networks 
offer the prospect of greater opportunities for seeking advice, challenging 
orthodoxy, meeting new minds and constructing one's own sense of 
self. Entirely new notions of social action, based not upon proximity 
and shared physical experience but rather on remote networks of common 
perceptions, may begin to emerge and challenge existing social structures 
(Loader, 1998).

What you call proprietary toos I call pretty advanced SDK you get 
with demoboard :-)

shouldn't anyone in US give RT a call to notify them?

sound and call both are, aren't they? I'm not sure, so I just wanted 
to start with what I knew from rebol.com and the reboltalk forum

not sure about 'call ...

'call is available from View 1.2.11, but I don't know if it's not 
just for beta-testing, and if it will be free in next official version

and if you want 'call from core, you need r/command.

I meant links to the docs (Library docs, Sound docs, call docs, encryption 
docs)

Linux 1.3 Beta -> Something is realy from with the terminal adjustement 
during view/console and after stopping view. The Console gets messed 
up like it has the wrong TermInfo values?  During a call/shell execution 
from the view/console also the console from Rebol/view is mixing 
up the call/shell "vi" ????????

Linux 1.3 Beta -> using call in view/console does not take care for 
killing Childs after quiting view

I am not able to call this behaviour consistent, I am sorry

if you call from a browser it will redirect you to the following 
url: https://acesso.uol.com.br/login.html?dest=CONTENT&url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/opiniao/fz1010200501.htm&COD_PRODUTO=7

So what I did was create an "anton-user.r" file, which my user.r 
calls *optionally*.
It decides whether to call it based on a command line argument.

So, two different command lines can start rebol "clean" (without 
anton-user.r) or "unclean" (with all my customizations in anton-user.r).

but the call to expand-packet happens only if there is extra data. 
if i outcomment "if not zero? num [" it works

This is a rebol error message - "*** Boot Error %d" appears in a 
recent rebview.exe - but I think the error code 951 is being passed 
to rebol from an OS call.

glayout, being a nested VID engine, will effectively call layout 
many times each one might have its own style word calls.

(again, just thinking out loud.. I am deep in my head resolving a 
get_username OS call, to get proper logon user on windows) hehe

#3666 "CALL interferes with UDP ports"  - doesn't seem to apply on 
Windows Rebol/View, I've tested about 30 versions so far.

ok, I just looked more deeply into the #4143 ticket.... its a nice 
alternative to switch cause it allows multiple cases for each action... 
 

it functions differently, why not call it 'CHOOSE   ?

I like the idea in theory, but what are standard parse rules ? There's 
an argument already - look, I'm arguing ! :)

I would prefer to call the "digit" rule "digits". Also, for this 
example, it's faster to define and be clear with it:
	digit: charset "0123456789"
than being abstract: (even though it would become well known):
	digit: system/parse/rules/digit

if the parser thinks a datatype is invalid, well, let's call it an 
invalid! datatype!!

More efficiency. I build my charsets once, rather than on every call.

my god, I think I finally  -get-  Parse... call me the village idiot. 
 I used to use parse, now I also understand subconciously it  ;-)

and actually... i'd call parse directly in that case ;)

this is possible, but my guess, that Steeve would call it ugly too:


>> once-only: func [rule] [use [rule'] copy/deep [rule': :rule [rule' 
(rule': [end skip])]]
]

>> rule: [(a': once-only a b': once-only b c': once-only c) 3 [a' 
| b' | c']]

== [(a': once-only a b': once-only b c': once-only c) 3 [a' | b' 
| c']]

Should work, remember to call show b in you code ...

Effect is the actual color in actual state imo. Remember that you 
can call 'show in many places. Effect is initialised upon button 
state by redraw code: "pick face/effects not state"

I'm rethinking the behaviour of my 'import dialect (library: http://bit.ly/rebimport
) when working with structured data. At it's simplest form, 'import 
filters a block of key-string pairs based on a supplied set of constraints: 
import [a "1"][a: integer! is more-than 0] == [a 1] ; or none if 
the constraints are not met


There are two nested forms I'd like to support: 1) a continuation 
of key-value blocks [a [b "1"]] and 2) a block of values [c ["b" 
"1" "foo"]]


The first could just be a recursive function or parse call. The second 
needs a little more thought - on the face of it, it could just verify 
the contents conform to a preset group: [ ["a" "b"] contains some 
of ["a" "b" "c"] ] (or any of), which'd be fine for validating web 
form input (eg. multi-select list), but would rule out, say, a JSON 
block containing objects (as key-value pairs).  I'm trying to figure 
out if this is overkill or a genuinely useful way of validating structured 
data...


Then there's ["1" "2" "3"] <- be nice to validate as [some integer!] 
or [some integer! | decimal!]. I don't want it to be overly complex, 
but it should at least be useful - anyone have any conventional cases 
for validating a block of strings?

Be careful though: The current implementation of callbacks in REBOL 
limits you to defining 16 per REBOL process. I'm not sure whether 
it is the making of the routine or the calling of the routine that 
establishes the callback though, so test to be sure. Most scripts 
I've seen use callbacks for logging, like your example, and so only 
call the routine once. Once the callback is established, there shouldn't 
be any limitation to the number of times the C code can call the 
REBOL function, in theory.

The rebol function must complete before the C function tries to call 
it again - or there will be fireworks. Even a short rebol function 
can take 40ms to complete (for example), and if the C function tries 
to call it every 20ms that will stuff up the rebol interpreter.

<filename>:<stream>:$<attribute> without the < and > of course. Since 
the default stream is the empty string and all attributes start with 
$ you can skip one of the colons with default attributes. The default 
attribute is $DATA, and what you would normally think of as the contents 
of %file would be in %file::$DATA really.


Executable files aren't marked as such with attributes like they 
are in Unix, but you can hide stuff in alternate streams. It wouldn't 
matter what the file was named if you could pass it to CreateProcess 
or some such, so you can hide executable code in alternate streams 
but without library support you can't call it. You should validate 
the filenames of files you are serving for security anyways, so this 
is just one more thing to look for.

Nope. You just need to make sure that your icon replacements are 
the same size and bit depth. You can then put your replacement icons 
in a .ico file and automate the build process with code like:


 call rejoin ["c:\rebol\bin\ResHacker.exe -addoverwrite " encap-exe 
 "," encap-exe "," to-local-file ico-file ",ICONGROUP,REBOL,1033"]


You can also do the same thing with Company/Version info and a .res 
file:


 call rejoin ["c:\rebol\bin\ResHacker.exe -addoverwrite " encap-exe 
 "," encap-exe "," to-local-file res-file ",VERSIONINFO,1,1033"]


The "switching icons" problem is a Windows thing. Highlight your 
newly created .exe file and select View|Refresh from the file explorer 
menu. This should cycle the Windows icon cache.

have to use a windows library call.

yet It seems impossible to even do a proper stdout call, so that 
another application can use my app's output ... (on windows).  I 
mean its just the most basic thing in any language.

now, why does using 'CALL within an encapped app cause it to freeze 
up and use 100% system CPU?

call doesn't make encapped apps to freeze .. I use it all the time.

to print ... I call other applications, or send stuff to lpt1

Maxim, the Detective uses the cgi option, and prints to the dos command 
prompt if you call it from there (try running "nren help"). It does 
not use call though, but async-call, but i don't remember problems 
with call + cgi options.

Gabriele: asynch-call?

Gabriele, my issue, is that I am trying to capture the output of 
the applications I call.  For this I need to use /console AFAIK. 
 but when I do so, the encapped app just goes mad and enters some 
kind of deadlock at 100% cpu usage.

async-call :  WOW !  direct re-implementation using kernel32 lib!

So, I guess I just need to use call instead which is async and returns 
immediately

Right, you use LAUNCH or CALL.

ie. to run the call for me?

Do it in your speak.rsp, it should be ok as long as your call/launch 
is not blocking.

0.9.17	21/12/2004 {
			o Added 'on-write-done event.
			o 'on-write call in 'write-peer temporaly deactivated.
			o bugfix in 'open-port, custom port-id now correctly used.
		}

I'm aware of libevent. Wrapping such lib in R2 would mean, at least, 
giving up on REBOL ports and REBOL's event loop. Quite a huge price 
to pay (UniServe couldn't be used with View apps, nor could receive 
system:// port events anymore). There's also the need to call REBOL 
function from the C side, which is not well supported in R2 (not 
even in R3...yet).

17/12-2:59:31.9210-[HTTPd] Method: GET - resource: /show.cgi
17/12-2:59:36.0930-[uniserve] New client: 127.0.0.1 - 9799
17/12-2:59:36.0930-[uniserve] Calling >on-new-client<

17/12-2:59:36.0930-[uniserve] << Port: 1723, low-level writing: 896
17/12-2:59:36.1090-[uniserve] Calling >on-write-done<

17/12-2:59:36.1250-[uniserve] >> Port: 1723, low-level reading: 13

17/12-2:59:36.1250-[uniserve] Calling >on-received< with {^@^@^@^-}

17/12-2:59:36.1400-[uniserve] Calling >on-received< with "[ok none]"

17/12-2:59:36.1400-## Error in [uniserve] : On-received call failed 
with error: make object! [
    code: 303
    type: 'script
    id: 'expect-arg
    arg1: 'copy
    arg2: 'value
    arg3: [series! port! bitset!]
    near: [either "HTTP" = copy/part data]
    where: 'on-task-done
] !
17/12-2:59:36.1710-[uniserve] Port closed : 127.0.0.1
17/12-2:59:31.9210-[HTTPd] Method: GET - resource: /show.cgi
17/12-2:59:36.0930-[uniserve] New client: 127.0.0.1 - 9799
17/12-2:59:36.0930-[uniserve] Calling >on-new-client<

17/12-2:59:36.0930-[uniserve] << Port: 1723, low-level writing: 896
17/12-2:59:36.1090-[uniserve] Calling >on-write-done<

17/12-2:59:36.1250-[uniserve] >> Port: 1723, low-level reading: 13

17/12-2:59:36.1250-[uniserve] Calling >on-received< with {^@^@^@^-}

17/12-2:59:36.1400-[uniserve] Calling >on-received< with "[ok none]"

17/12-2:59:36.1400-## Error in [uniserve] : On-received call failed 
with error: make object! [
    code: 303
    type: 'script
    id: 'expect-arg
    arg1: 'copy
    arg2: 'value
    arg3: [series! port! bitset!]
    near: [either "HTTP" = copy/part data]
    where: 'on-task-done
] !
17/12-2:59:36.1710-[uniserve] Port closed : 127.0.0.1

Gabriele - thank you so much for planning a sightseeing trip in Rome 
and negotiating a reduced hotel rate.  That is really above and beyond 
the call of duty.  My one piece of feedback is regarding the schedule. 
 I helped plan Handango's annual conferences and the one thing I 
learned early on is that bathroom breaks are very important.  I noticed 
the schedule has no breaks.  You might want to add in a few 15 minute 
breaks, otherwise you'll have people walking in and out of the sessions.

Putting this into SQLite would require, that we add those country 
specific sorting rules at the C level and provide a Rebol call, so 
select the correct sorting.

I seem to get an error with sqlite after using "call" to start an 
external program.

** User Error: SQLite out of memory
** Near: make error! reform ["SQLite" error]

Anyone experience this?

It works fine until I try to call another app. Paths do not change 
but I'm not using absolute paths. I'll need to test that...

I have a REBOL/View application where I am doing SQL calls in a face 
timer to update the face. I am having an intermittent issue where 
the result of one face's SQL statement is showing up in another face. 
I am doing a copy of the result set based on what I've read in the 
Dobeash docs.


It appears that the face timer code blocks and another timer event 
occurs and does a SQL call. Does anyone know how to make a timer 
function finish before another one triggers? I may also be using 
the driver incorrectly.

For now, I've wrapped the SQL calls with "busy" flag logic and that 
seems to work -- but it is a hack. The fact that a SQL function call 
inside a face timer event returns a dataset from a different face 
is shocking to me. REBOL should handle this properly in the background. 
My mental model of single-threaded event handling (rooted in classic 
VB) leads me to believe that this is a bug.


In addition to returning data to the wrong face, the SQLite shared 
object will also sometimes seg fault. It working fine now, though, 
with my busy flag hack.

Graham, yes, I am triggering queries using timer events, and the 
sql results are being returned to the wrong calling function. My 
classic VB way of doing things doesn't work. How exactly are you 
doing your queries? Putting them in a queue to be serviced by a single 
function? For me that would also require including the face, so it 
can be updated when the sql call completes.

Here is Gabriele's response to my bug report (RAMBO ticket # 4411)


This is not really a REBOL bug. The SQLite driver is doing a WAIT 
1 in the DO-STEP function; calling WAIT inside an event handler (such 
as a face's timer event) is not really supported by REBOL and should 
be avoided. If you can't avoid it, you must be prepared to handle 
other events happening during that WAIT call, and you need to be 
very careful with blocking requesters (SHOW-POPUP, INFORM etc.) as 
they're likely to mess things up (they call WAIT as well).

My suggestions are:


1) File a bug report with the SQLite driver. There needs to be a 
way to avoid the WAIT, though I guess this is going to be complicated 
in R2.


2) Disable other events while you're using the SQLite driver, eg. 
clear SYSTEM/PORTS/WAIT-LIST and restore it afterwards.

3) Use a "global" flag like you're doing.

-Gabriele

or maybe they want to release at least some alpha framework, and 
then they will open call for developers, dunno ...

What is the speed of this compared to using closure (with the extra 
block):
o: context [a: 2 * pi f: closure [x] [(sine/radians x) / a]]
And then call it by: o/f 1

regarding variable "modification": in all cases the variables *are* 
local to the function, but (unfortunately) FUNCs "reuse" the variables, 
while CLOSUREs "create" new variables every time you call them

values defined as default arguments are just like /local variables 
in rebol, they are only defined once and persist from one function 
call to another.  thus blocks get re-used.  We get used to this in 
rebol and do our own copy []   and   return first reduce [val val:none]

especially if the values are reset at each function call.

e.g. if you know that you function has to do a certain job, then 
the function shouldn't be necessarily responsible to do all the checking 
in can think about, but the sourrounding code should call it like 
it is  supposed to do

Pekr, what about making a small REBOL program, which can load postscript 
dialect txt-file, convert it to a .ps file, then call ps2pdf and 
finally call a PDF-viewer (Acrobat Reader) to see the result. You 
could also include a button to send the .ps file to a printer. Then 
you'll have PostScript with preview and all (also under Windows).

ok, then you can do the same from within rebol. I don't know if you 
can write to LPT from within rebol though, but you can call dos commands 
the same way as you just did with CALL.

how do I call it again, with /fontsize or fontsize?

I call gswin32c.exe and feed it parameters to use the win32pr driver, 
which sends a bitmap to the printer given as a parameter in the same 
call.

if 2 modules declare the same phase's function to be first, which 
one to call ? :-)

Back again ...and overnight ( for me ), Cheyenne has crashed.  Only 
one process is running, and there's this error which may or may not 
be relevant


## Error in [uniserve] : On-received call failed with error: make 
object! [
    code: 311
    type: 'script
    id: 'invalid-path
    arg1: 'expires
    arg2: none
    arg3: none
    near: [sess/expires < now]
    where: 'gc
] !

I suppose one issue will be connecting to the library.. would require 
view/pro?  Can call the binary, but it's a less elegant solution

Can always call, but lib access would be nicer.

hmm.. followed the instructions.. uncommented the httpd.conf (need 
to comment out the others??)

[uniserve] Async Protocol FastCGI loaded
[uniserve] Starting task-master...
[uniserve] Starting HTTPd...

## Error in [uniserve] : On-received call failed with error: make 
object! [
    code: 303
    type: 'script
    id: 'expect-arg
    arg1: 'in
    arg2: 'object
    arg3: [object! port!]
    near: [if in site 'on-request [
            if site/on-request req params svc [return true]
        ]]
    where: 'handler
] !

The workaround is to call directly the win32 API to get the correct 
timezone offset, so requires /Library component.

We'll call it HTTPextreme

I have this odd problem with trying to execute a batch script from 
an rsp page.

I do a call/wait and get a return value of 0, but the script doesn't 
actually do what it's supposed to do .. viz. convert a ps file to 
pdf.
but the same batch file called from a rebol console does work.

I don't see why 'call wouldn't work in RSP.

If I don't use firedaemon, then the batch file using 'call works. 
 But if I do, it fails :(

Have you considered reading the source of the .cmd script and translating 
its behavior to REBOL? You might be better able to call the command 
line tools directly rather than through cmd.exe.

This was all I was doing:


call/wait "gswin32.exe -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=test.pdf 
-f test.ps"

tried your package:

[uniserve] Async Protocol FastCGI loaded
[uniserve] Starting task-master...
[uniserve] Starting RConsole...
[uniserve] Starting HTTPd...
unknown-host

## Error in [uniserve] : On-received call failed with error: make 
object! [
    code: 311
    type: 'script
    id: 'invalid-path
    arg1: 'handler
    arg2: none
    arg3: none
    near: [either in port/locals/handler name: 'new-insert-port]
    where: 'insert-port
] !

I still get the same error:


## Error in [uniserve] : On-received call failed with error: make 
object! [
    code: 311
    type: 'script
    id: 'invalid-path
    arg1: 'handler
    arg2: none
    arg3: none
    near: [either in port/locals/handler name: 'new-insert-port]
    where: 'insert-port
] !

On windows platforms, you'll get the infamous DOS window flashing 
when executing an external CGI ! It's just a matter of 1 flag to 
correctly set in 'call C source code, if you're really annoyed by 
that, ask RT to fix it asap (for 2.7.6 that would be good)! ;-) I 
may reimplement completely call command in REBOL, but it would be 
a big waste of time and energy...it should be a 10 minutes fix for 
RT. Addind a time limit to 'call would be a good thing too, it would 
also avoid me the reimplementation of 'call to add such feature....

I recall fixing the DOS box by using a winapi libary call instead.. 
I'll see if I can dig it up.

For executing external applications as CGI, you need to handle stdin, 
stdout and stderr, that's something that can't be done with ShellExecute(), 
you need to use CreateProcess() for that. I've partially done it 
in my async-call library, but it lacks a few features and it only 
support Windows.

Doc: remember the Detective version of async-call also works on linux, 
freebsd, solaris, and mac os x. :) i guess we should make a sync 
version of that for normal human beings to use ;)

async-call is here: http://www.colellachiara.com/soft/async-call-definition.r

and from Cheyenne


## Error in [uniserve] : On-received call failed with error: make 
object! [
    code: 305
    type: 'script
    id: 'invalid-arg
    arg1: none
    arg2: none
    arg3: none
    near: [parse/all data [
            some [
                s: to bound e: (
                    if e <> s [
                        either wrt? [
                            insert/part tmp/port s skip e -2
                        ] [
                            insert/part tail req/in/content s e
                        ]
                    ]
                )
                s: bound [
                    "--" to end s: break
                    | thru crlfcrlf e: (
                        insert/part tail req/in/content s e

                        if wrt?: to logic! find/part s "Content-Type" e [

                            append tmp/files name: make-tmp-filename

                            repend req/in/content [mold name crlf]
                            if tmp/port [close tmp/port]
                            tmp/port: open/mode name [
                                binary direct no-wait write new
                            ]
                        ]
                    )
                ]
            ]
        ]
        tmp/buffer: either
    ]
    where: 'process-content
] !

Most languages support the CGI interface, they call all be used with 
Cheyenne. I plan a specific support for Java servers (by implementing 
AJP protocol in Cheyenne).

call = can

they're trying to call you

Reichart try to call us

that is really strange. I never saw Skype before and two weeks ago 
when we had meeting from high-school, I set-up Skype in 5-10 minutes, 
including registration, installation, and our town - Dallas call 
was OK. Well, but I am my ISP too :-)

it can call other functions that return the html for the molecules

We are currently building SMS interfaces, ie.  Calendar in/out messeging. 
 Type "meet Norman 7p" on phone and instantly it appears on your 
calendar both on call but also on computer (browsers).

I have to call it a night, I have only slept 2 hours in the past 
48, and have a bunch of meetings in the next 16 hours.

Second example is direct game engines. I was making some games in 
PTK (it's a c++ library for mac and win) in the past. I wanted to 
use PTK with a higher level language and making a binding to it feels 
like a major pain to me, so after the BlitzMax+Lua experience I simply 
made a simple "engine" with it and embeded enkovm/haxe in it . I 
exposed some functions from c++ side like loadSprite, drawSprite 
and make some call-ins into the nekovm like "draw" and I could already 
code a simple game with it.  So embedding if possible at all of course 
would mean a great strength for rebol in my eyes! I think I once 
noticed that this will be possible in R3 but I couldn't find it later 
and I remember it only vaguely.

Mostly Ruby and a bit Java => http://rubility.heroku.com; It's in 
very early stages though. At the moment I am creating the underlying 
technologies for the game and the virtual computer it runs on. Well, 
let's call it a virtual virtual computer since I use a very easy 
trick to simulate a virtual computer :p (the game is an MDI app, 
and "apps" in the game are just MDI windows)

a big step in GFx occured at about the same time, you could actually 
call it a leap.   Hardware shaders, better illuminations and gfx 
ram jumped to be 256MB at minimum on most cards.


but most games of today allow very low settings which allow you to 
work on older machines... I've got a 4 year old 1.5Ghz core duo with 
an old 8600M nvidia card.


and SC2 is quite responsive on it.  though I would like to play with 
a bit more graphics quality... its not the game's fault.  4-5 years 
ago 3D game graphics quality was still pretty deficient.  but with 
any average 100$ card today,  you'll get pretty amazing graphics.

Maxim: But there were two situations like that. You also have to 
decide if you want to help the doctor or help the protoss. Aren't 
these two different missions too? I haven't replayed the game yet 
so I don't know.

Graham: If you ask direct questions like that we have to tell you 
a direct lie ;) Of course it was written in REBOL! How else would 
you make a game like that? I think Carl was personally involved with 
the development of the game. He has mentioned it on his blog somewhere... 
I'm pretty sure about that. And I think he tweeted that he is afraid 
of chicken now because of the similarities to Zerg. He said something 
about "They are watching me, waiting for the right moment to charge." 
He's probably right now making little Overlords out of mashed potatoes. 
Call me a liar and I'll lie again!

it is Flash... or you can call it AIR... AIR SDK is using LLVM to 
convert the ActionScript bytecode to native iOS code.