[REBOL] Re: REBOL, AMIGA/TAO & MICRO$OFT DOT-NET (Long!)
From: carl:cybercraft at: 30-Sep-2000 12:00
On 30-Sep-00, [edinburgh--veitchi--co--uk] wrote:
> This one is for all you AMIGANS out there! Petr?
> Whilst perusing the Amiga website yesterday & reading about "The
> Amiverse" Amiga Digital Environment & it's various layers &
> foundation technologies, I came across the following sentence......
> "In addition, Amiga is working on a revolutionary common language
> that unites command line, scripting, control and serious application
> development. "
> My immediate thoughts were this smells like REBOL.
I assume this is what's going under the code-name "Sheep"? Anyway,
while the above may remind you of REBOL, to most Amiga users its
sounds like an extended ARexx. ARexx is a language to allow
applications to communicate and control each other and has been part
of the Amiga OS since Workbench 2. (circa 1990?)
> I've been reading snippets about the new Amiga plans for the last
> year or so, things like Amino / Aqua, Phoenix Consortium to the new
> Amiga/Tao platform & software development kit etc.
> How strong are the ties between REBOL & the new AMIGA environment ?
> Are REBOL independent or subsidiary in the whole Amiga
> scheme of things?
Independent, I'm pretty sure. The current Amiga Inc. have only
existed since the beginning of this year. (Gateway owned Amiga
before that, and still own the Amiga patents.) REBOL (going by
what's been said on this list of late) is now around four years old.
> Is it because QNX will compete for the same space as Amiga/Tao?
> or was just because with loads going on at REBOL just now
> with /Command, working on /Express, new developments to
> /Core & /View that a reliable working QNX version of /View
> was just not a high enough priority?
Core is available for both the new Amiga and QNX RTP. And View isn't,
as it isn't for the Mac. No favoritism here as far as I can see.
I'm sure RT would like View on as many platforms as possible, as I'm
sure they'd like it finished and out of Beta by now too. The later
probably has quite a high prioity - hopefully... (:
Someone said here that REBOL's not on the latest RedHat Linux either.
Perhaps they've decided they'd rather not have it on OS
distributions to stop accusations of them favouring one platform over
another?
> If REBOL truly are independent then having /View & later /Multimedia
> available across all & every platform is going to lead to having to
> maintain a truly enormous code base to cover every range of
> CPU + OS + Graphics Layer.
> Think about the whole multitude of possible permutations &
> combinations.
> A subset might be as follows;
> Intel 86 + MS Windows + GDI / Win32's
> PPC + Mac OS X + Aqua
> Intel 86 + BE OS + Be Media Layer
> PPC + BE OS + Be Media Layer
> Intel 86 + Linux + XFree86
> Sparc + Linux + XFree86
> PPC + Linux + XFree86
> Intel 86 or Sparc or PPC etc + Linux + MicroWindows
> Intel 86 or Sparc or PPC etc + Linux + QT Embedded
> Every CPU + Tao Elate + Amiga Foundation Layers
> Every CPU + QNX + Photon Micro GUI
> Add in Solaris, Palm, Symbian, FreeBSD, Unix as well
> as NETBSD which runs on every platform known to man
> including ports to the Sega Dreamcast & Sony Playstation
> then the list of combinations becomes huge.
> Can REBOL independently support all this menagerie of
> hardware & software ?
Why not? I assume there's just a bottom layer to REBOL that accesses
the OS it's running on. This bottom layer is all they'd need to
re-write for each new OS that appears. They can port Core pretty
quickly going by the 40+ platforms it's already on. How quickly View
will be able to ported after they finish it remains to be seen, but
doesn't it occure to you that putting REBOL on new platforms quickly
is probably part of its design specs?
> Open Source maybe the only way viable to support every platform with
> REBOL, that way platform developers & enthusiasts could be
> responsible for maintaining & developing REBOL like technology on
> their chosen platform. Carl Sassenrath & a consortium of parties
> with major interests in REBOL as a technology could develop & write
> standards & specifications for REBOL, whilst platform specific
> implementation is left to each platform group.
> Aside from REBOL, JAVA now stands as the most popular Language
> currently in use on the planet, with massive resources devoted to it
> in industry & education, I don't see this changing anytime soon.
> Whilst it may not be our cup of tea, it's obviously massively
> popular & will continue to be a significant technology for modern
> software development.
Which is all well and good, so how come Java's not on the Classic
Amiga yet? (Other than that RT poached Holger away from us, but I'm
sure he's having way more fun with REBOL than he was with the Amiga
Java port, even if he's not allowed to sleep any more.:)
And where's the Classic Amiga port of Mozilla? It's Open Source,
isn't it? Should be a breeze to port compared to reverse-engineering
an unfinished language such as REBOL, shouldn't it?
Open Source has its place, but I have my doubts it's a good way of
providing consistent versions of the same software across a wide
variety of platforms.
