[REBOL] Re: [why-REBOL] Pros and Cons / what's so special
From: antonr:lexicon at: 25-Jun-2004 17:04
I've been mucking about with Maya5's MEL language,
which can be used to create and manipulate 3D objects
in the Maya program.
It's a rude shock to go back to such a language.
It's like unix shell scripting mixed with c-language
and a bunch of datatypes that don't play all that nicely
with each other.
I don't want to bag the language too much because it
can do a lot, but the limitations of the traditional syntax
and other things are really holding it back.
Now I have learned rebol it is clear to me that such a
language technology should not be wasted. These ideas must
spread to other languages. (Such a process is slow of course.)
Anyway, here is an line from this MEL language:
print ("w = " + $w + " h = " + $h + " max_dist = " + $max_dist);
and a rebol equivalent:
print [{w =} w {h =} h {max_dist =} max_dist]
Now, you might think "that's not such an amazing win", but
now I will ask you to check each line to see if there is
an error in the syntax. Is there? ;)
How long did it take to verify each line?
Just a small example. I was fighting with variable scope as well.. guh.
I would like to see MEL reimplemented with rebol as core, and
new datatypes to handle matrices and all those complex data sets
which are useful for 3D information storage and manipulation.
Of course, one would have to convince the Maya people to do that,
and I doubt they would do it, as they already have a big investment
in the current language, and it would probably take about 5 years just
to grow the new language back to the capability they have at the moment.
Anton.
