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[REBOL] Re: help with mail attachment please

From: woodward:shore at: 10-Aug-2001 13:39

On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, David Kachel wrote:
> I tried increasing Rebol's memory partition. Result: crash and burn again!
That may have more to do with the relatively poor memory handling under MacOS than anything else - I'm assuming you're using 9.x not OS X? Under various flavors of Windows it's not unusual for REBOL/View to consume 70MB or more running what I think of as light-weight scripts (with a fair amount of image data - which I would imagine would be similar in footprint to PDF data).
> I think you may have missed my point: > Can View (or CORE for that matter) be launched from anything on a Mac and > passed parameters? In other words, can any software OTHER THAN REBOL OR A > WEB SERVER, activate and pass a function name along with parameters to > Rebol, on which information Rebol can then act? Or is Rebol simply a lump > that requires me to physically launch it with a mouse and input calls > from the keyboard?
<rant> If you had a command line, maybe? Sorry - couldn't resist the jab. </rant> I've never had any problem invoking scripts with a variety of arguments from Linux, Solaris, or Windows. Of course, they all have a fairly robust command line interface. It's been a long time since I've had to script anything on a Mac (I used to use AppleScript and HyperCard pretty extensively 5 or 6 years ago) - but I do recall as there was some way to invoke apps with parameters from within AppleScript. It may simply be that you'll want to create a wrapper in AppleScript to call REBOL scripts. I'd imagine this seems pretty stupid - but it's an unintended consequence of the over-reliance on a GUI... Other stumbling blocks include a lot of non-standard interfaces and APIs on the Mac, and I would suspect that (unfortunately for you) market share is a relatively large driver for REBOL development. On a standard CGI interface it should be possible to invoke REBOL fairly easily w/o using any AppleScript - but it really depends on the Web Server you're using.
> <RANT ON> > As I understand it, Rebol easily responds to such 'messaging' on any > flavor of Unix, and even on, ugh, Windblows(?). Why on Earth is it > considered unimportant to do the same on a Mac? If it were the *nix > platforms that lacked such obviously needed functionality, there would > certainly not be a similar failure to "get it" at Rebol. > > It's not as if such implementation would be difficult either! Only four > commands would be required: > > Activate/Launch/Run > Quit > DoScript() with() > Return > > What's more, since Rebol can already react to a call from a Web server > and accept parameters from it, that means that the plumbing for the above > is already largely in place. It's as if the plug is lying on the floor > and the folks at Rebol refuse to pick it up and plug it in! > > Here's what I need to do: > > 1. Client submits form to Web server. > 2. Web server calls my already in-place cgi, sending along the usual form > text. > 3. My cgi uses the info sent along by the web server to update a couple > of databases and then (because the cgi software is properly conversant > with the rest of my system) sends a call to Rebol (OR TO VIRTUALLY ANY > OTHER SOFTWARE AVAILABLE FOR THE MAC OR IN THE MAC SYSTEM ITSELF), > which... > 4. Sits there and does nothing, because Rebol can't take any calls from > anything except a web server, but if it could, would package up an email > with an attachment and send it out. > > Now in theory, I could presumably have the web server call Rebol first, > which could then successfully package and send my email. But the next > thing Rebol would have to do is call the aforementioned cgi, which of > course it cannot do, because Rebol is 99% mute!!! Or, I could have Rebol > perform the cgi behavior itself, but then... Rebol is still mute and > can't do that either. > > Now the above is the way Rebol behaved (or failed to behave) when I > looked at it the first, second and third times. If things have changed > and I have simply failed to see it, I would LOVE to be corrected. > Someone, Carl(?), PLEASE correct me! I would be overjoyed to eat crow. > But until someone can make me chew on black feathers, this so-called > universal cross-platform software is not universal or cross-platform at > all! If I can write a shell program on Linux that calls Rebol, sends it > parameters and makes it jump, then I should be able to do exactly the > same thing on any other platform, including the Mac, which accomplishes > such things through APPLESCRIPT !!!! > > The court finds the entire Rebol staff guilty and sentences them to > forever code in Fortran... I feel so much better. > <RANT OFF>
Have you considered maybe that some of the limitations may be due to barriers provided by the underlying system? I'm sure they can be overcome on OS 9.x but you have to ask yourself is it worth REBOL techs time and effort - especially with the superior OS X is available and shipping as standard on new Macs (and oh yeah - it's really Unix under the hood)? - Porter