[REBOL] Re: [why-REBOL] Pros and Cons / what's so special
From: moliad:aei:ca at: 25-Jun-2004 0:56
Hi,
I'm coming out of the black for one mail... I'm doing so little programming
these days, hence my silence on the list... I'm on vacation, just turned 29
today and am doing intensive work on the house, so its hard to put time on the
favorite hobby...
> article you did on O'reilly where I remember you said you did some stuff a
> particular way because people would be thinkking "WOW, how did he do that"
well
> all that is an argument against the human friendly syntax.
yep and shakespear isn't for everyone either.
although macbeth and harry poter are both books which contain magic, and written
in english (of a different dialect ;-) they are not intended for the same
audience.
in rebol, you can express the same problem in different ways.
in most other languages, there is really only one way to build anything.
in how many other languages can you redefine/extend the function definition
statement... even with python, you still can only define a function in one way.
can you create an unless if it does not exist?
can you use code as data (and vice-versa).
> I
> do see stuff get built in Rebol all the time that I think is cool stuff, but
> hell I see stuff that gets built in all languages all the time that I think is
> cool stuff. I haven't really seen anything built in rebol, other than the
async
> protocol, that has given me reason to reconsider the usages I think it most
> appropriate for. However maybe this is a difficult thing to do.
I have had to implement the same things in more than one language and
generally, especially if there is a ui involved, rebol takes less than half the
time to implement and it generally goes beyond the original design.
a series is a series. a port is a port. so many things work at that level that
you forget that you are accessing an ftp port or a disk... a string or a block
of loaded values. do you realise that if someone types an ftp url within a file
load, that rebol will try to load it without your having to fiddle around with
an ftp module or read about how to enable the ftp support, or rather HOW to get
ftp to work.
For many things, rebol does not go beyond other languages, it just does more of
it consistently. You only nead to learn how series work ONCE (and they are
pretty natural, IMHO) then you can use some or all the series concepts on:
strings, lists, hashes, ports, blocks, paths, tuples, decimals, pairs, dates and
more.
not all datatypes use the complete series functionality, but any functionality
it supports will be consistent ACROSS ALL types.
python has a COMPLETELY independent structure for strings, lists, tupples, time,
decimals, dates, networking, etc. you nead to learn each one FROM scratch,
because they don't reuse the same ideology on any one.
That is one reson I prefer rebol. learn once, reuse many.
-MAx
