[REBOL] Re: MIT article on rebol and other languages
From: greggirwin:mindspring at: 18-Feb-2002 12:05
Hi Terry,
<< But I can't help thinking that that there's something fundamentally
wrong with all languages. Instinct would tell me that dialects are on the
right track.
Somewhere out there must be the killer dialect. >>
I think there can't be just one killer dialect. There will be hundreds, or
thousands, of dialects, and that is the key.
<< But what intrigues me more is the lack of cooperation to accomplish
ANYTHING. There is 1000 times more talk on which is the better language,
then doing something truly constructive with any of em. >>
Human nature maybe?
<< I've made numerous attempts on this list to get organized and form some
think tanks or whatever, with nay a single response??
What gives? My only guess is that the Rebol community, or at least the
part that actually reads these posts, is really rather small. The "law of
big numbers" would have kicked in had their been a big number of readers,
and someone, anyone, would have responded... surely. >>
I believe there are a number of projects under development by the ML members
here but, alas, many just fade away because of attrition or cirucmstance
(rebmail and Glass come to mind). Ammon Johnson is working on an IDE for
REBOL, Carl Read and I are hoping to find time to work on a bot-wars game
kinda' thingy, Rugby, Garbriele's DBMS, Make-doc-pro, a standard library,
Andrew's eText, Ladislav's higher-fun stuff, and many others. Most projects
are the labor-of-love of a single person who then contributes them to the
community. I don't disagree with you, though, I just don't have any answers.
:)
<< Another example is the www.Rebols.com website. Really, an experiment
in
potential Reblet type commercialization... numerous posts here... and not a
single sale??? I mean, theres a developer reblet there that turns any script
into the world's easiest macro creation utility ever! >>
Part of this may be the concerns, and confusion, over the licensing schemes
and royalties that RT requires (as far as contributions go). As far as
sales, I can only give you my perspective. As a developer, I tend to buy
things I have a need for or am interested in. I'm not a software junkie. I
just don't need a utility to sync my clock. I've tried a few batch/macro
utilities and none of them ever found their way into my daily life so I'm
hesitant to plunk down the money, up front, for something I think will just
end up collecting dust on my disk. I might risk a few bucks, but it costs
quite a bit more than that. The Agent utility is the most intriguing to me
but won't provide value to anything I'm doing right now, so it would just be
a "for fun" thing and I guess the cost is more than the perceived "fun
value" for me.
<< I've taken Rebol and created a 'bot' that can read, comprehend, and
answer questions on whatever it's just read (In discussions with
biography.com on that one) ... developed the world's most advanced
chatterbot, the world's most HAL 9000ish system on the planet to date (check
out a demo conversation at http://24.77.230.151/lfred/demos/lfred.mp3) and
yet no one seems to care? >>
I'll have to check that out, but I'm sure a lot of folks here can sympathize
(including me). There are more cool REBOL tools out there than you can shake
a stick at, many of which languish I'm afraid.
<< So I guess my question would be.. why not? But then the responses would
stumble and fall back into the discussion realm with things like the "Rebol
should be open source" garbage. >>
Open source is a great idea, and I think most folks here would like nothing
better than to make a living using a tool we love (REBOL). The trick is how
to do both. Until an open source project/product has built up considerable
visibility and momentum, how do you make money on it? How do you convince
people that your "commercial" script provides value above and beyond freely
available alternatives sight-unseen?
I have pages of ideas and numerous projects in progress myself, so I'm right
there with you. I think we all want REBOL to become a viable tool with which
we can support ourselves, but that may take some time...and a lot of luck.
--Gregg
