[REBOL] REALLY DISCOVER THE POWER OF REBOL Re:
From: ryanc:iesco-dms at: 21-Sep-2000 9:56
Mark,
I agree that REBOL is doing a great job, greater than great even. I also think
we should help ourselves as much as possible allowing REBOL to focus on thier
work. I think your REMACS idea deserves merit as well. But I do not think an
open source version of REBOL is healthy at this time.
Not only does it increase fragmentation in the language, already a minor issue,
yet so far necessary, it opens REBOL up to snooping from software competitors.
At REBOL's early stage this would be dangerous. For this reason I will not
contribute to this project and also will recommend others not to do so. :^(
Plus, who wants to program in C anyways, yuck!
--Ryan
PS: I dont know how, but I think they must be putting an addictive substance in
the language somewhere.
[edinburgh--veitchi--co--uk] wrote:
> REALLY DISCOVER THE POWER OF REBOL
>
> I have been learning, using & experimenting with REBOL for about
> 18 months now and I'm sure like many others on this List am very
> excited about REBOL, it's power & it's prospects.
>
> As I once read somewhere, REBOL is the cocaine of scripting languages,
> it is highly addictive & you just have to get more!.
>
> Various interesting issues frequently crop up on this list, for example,
> aspects of a particular REBOL behaviour or feature, suspected bugs /
> problems,
> future developments, wish lists, feature requests etc.
>
> Another great feature of the REBOL community is sharing of knowledge,
> experience, help, advice & generally friendly nature of comments
> & debates. All those who regularly feature on the list participate
> willingly & constructively, which is also great.
>
> Carl & all the rest of the REBOL Crew are also doing great work,
> producing quality products as well as finding time to contribute
> to the various lists, to explain, to announce, to clarify & even
> to disagree as appropriate.
>
> What is not so great is the frustrations which surface on the list
> from time to time. Feature's not yet implemented, Which Products
> should be given priority /Core /View /Command /Express etc,
> Documentation or the sufficient lack of, Late Release dates,
> Persisting bugs, Platforms supported, Rebols future direction or needs.
>
> First of all as I previously stated Carl & Rebol Co. are doing a great
> job developing the language, products, documentation, communicating to
> lists, organising & running Rebol Technologies to provide us with
> REBOL as we've come to know and love.
>
> Are we happy with their contribution - YES Indeed!, can we expect them
> to do more - NO!, they're doing their very best to juggle the conflicting
> demands & successfully keep all the balls in the air & keep everyone happy.
>
> Should we be content & just accept the situation as things are,
> afterall the REBOL people are doing their best, REBOL's available for
> free, should we be happy with what we've got, we can't reasonably
> demand anymore.
>
> Not necessarily so, WE CAN HELP OURSELVES!
>
> If we really want to understand the internals of REBOL, if we really
> want the language to develop as we would wish & not at the behest of
> a Corporate Management or Marketing Department, WE CAN HELP OURSELVES!
>
> This is my main point of what is becoming a very long post indeed.
>
> The finite resources & corporate demands on REBOL TECHNOLOGIES inc.
> are the biggest bottleneck to the future direction & speed of development
> of REBOL, as a language & technology.
>
> Third Party Developers is where the real growth of REBOL or any software
> technology comes from, and right now the biggest Third Party is US,
> Rebol.org, the users list!
>
> Now to the meat of my suggested solutions, two projects, organised
> & run by us, the people on the REBOL lists, developed & discussed
> either here or at some other friendly host like www.egroups.com .
>
> Project 1 - OSCAR
>
> OSCAR Open Source Code Aka Rebol
> OSCAR Open Source Code Attempted Rebol
> OSCAR Open Source Code Acts-like Rebol
> OSCAR Open Source Code Adheres-to Rebol
> OSCAR Open Source Code Assimilates Rebol
>
> Pet-Name ( Alternative ? )
>
> CARLS CARL Sassenrath's Advanced Rebol Language System
>
> >From the OSCAR name above, you might have guessed the proposal
> is for those of us language buffs sufficiently intrigued by the
> internal workings of REBOL is to develop our own REBOL Interpreter.
>
> WHY ?
>
> 1. To further our understanding of REBOL's inner workings.
> 2. To experiment ourselves with various implementation features.
> 3. To provide a REBOL for use on DEBIAN & free software systems.
> 4. To ensure the protection of REBOL language from corporate control
> or abuse or neglect, i.e. The AMIGA fiasco's / sad stories.
> 5. For the fun of it!.
>
> Carl stated in the past on of the reasons REBOL would not be opened
> sourced until much later would be to prevent fragmentation.
> This would be the prime directive of OSCAR if it goes ahead,
> All official user releases must look like REBOL, smell like REBOL &
> for all intents & purposes mimic REBOL behaviour as best as possible.
>
> This need not deter experimentation, if fact useful new development
> features could be sent to REBOL.com for consideration & possible
> inclusion in official REBOL releases, however that is much later
> in the game.
>
> Firstly those of us interested enough need to harness our knowledge
> skills & expertise of compiled programming languages like ANSI C
> or Modula-2 / Pascal or SCHEME etc to discuss & develop an interpreter
> for a small subset of REBOL/Core, probably the natives!, datatypes!
> & operators! from which everything else is built upon.
>
> However I digress, those sort of discussions are for the OSCAR project
> to decide, the purpose here is to stimulate opinion, enthusiasm, critique
> & hopefully momentum for such a project.
>
> Project 2 - REEMACS
>
> REEMACS Rebol Extensible Environment MACroS
> REEMACS Rebol Engineered EMACS
> REEMACS Rebol Engineered Environment Makes Advanced Computing Simple
>
> As the name suggests the intention here is to create an advanced extensible
> editor & environment written entirely in REBOL built on a REBOL interpreter.
> View GUI versions & Command versions could be developed later.
>
> REEMACS would be an advanced editor & environment extensible with REBOL
> functions, macros & scripts, in the spirit of Richard Stallman's GNU EMACS
> but bettered by applying REBOL human-centric principals & features including
> a more intuitive & easy to use interface whilst retaining all the power &
> flexibility that REBOL provides.
>
> In short REEMACS would be a state of the art Editor / Environment for the
> 21st Century including;
>
> * Advanced Text Editing & Formatting
> * File & Directory Control
> * Diary & Calendaring
> * Email & FTP
> * Language Syntax Highlighting
> * Documentation & Help
> * Everything else not yet thought of.......
>
> As above the intention here is to stimulate interest & discussion about
> a REEMACS project and call to arms for those REBOL Coders looking to
> show off their REBOL skills on a project that can harness & collate the
> combined skills & scripts of the REBOL Community to provide a generally
> useful REBOL Utility.
>
> There is no reason for REEMACS not to collaborate with other on going
> projects such as REBMAIL to produce a world class REBOL application.
>
> So there you have it OSCAR & REEMACS, they are my suggestions, now
> Iam looking for your responses.
>
> I would be obliged if all comments & discussion could be kept to this
> list & all replies sent to [list--rebol--com] and not to me personally.
>
> All the best,
>
> Mark Dickson
--
Ryan Cole
Programmer Analyst
www.iesco-dms.com
707-468-5400
We are what we think. All that we are arises
with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make
the world. --Buddha
