[REBOL] REALLY DISCOVER THE POWER OF REBOL Re:
From: news:ted:husted at: 21-Sep-2000 16:58
On 9/21/2000 at 4:26 PM [edinburgh--veitchi--co--uk] wrote:
> 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.
Personally, I believe the real bottleneck is REBOL Corporate's refusal
to provide an industry-standard support systems for developers. The
lack of a bug list and knowledge base is inexcusable and unrealistic.
Heck, there's not even a formal specification of the language. The
documentation is fair -- even good when Carl writes it himself. But for
ongong support, all that's provided is a entry-level mailing list with
a short-lived archive. The new Command Care script shipping with
/COMMAND looks like a step in the right direction -- but where's the
/VIEW version? There's a lot of glitz on REBOL.COM about Express, which
would be cool IF IT EXISTED!
Of coure this is probably why there are so few ready-to-run real-life
REBOL applications shipping today - what is there? Vanilla, News Site,
and Elan's DBMS. Otherwise, the example being set is that REBOL is a
fun toy for quick and dirty puzzles, and that's all anyone seems to
write. Even many of the samples are just underpowered clones of other
softwares. (Take SELMA for example.) And here we go again, let's write
another REBOL interpreter; let's write a EMAC's clone, let's write an
email client. Hey, we got those already, let's move on.
I know this seems harsh, but I do believe in REBOL, and I would like to
recommend it to my clients for paying work. But I'm having trouble
seeing the emporer's clothes.
My development schedule, including overtime, is booked through
November, but if I were going write something in REBOL, I'd start with
a Web site control panel, or an enterprise portal, especially ones that
looked great in a browser and fantastic in VIEW. Still new ground to
cover on those fronts.
-Ted.
