[REBOL] Re: REBOL great but flawed => Fw: [Flashcoders] Request for Michael - Fo
From: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 26-Jan-2002 21:08
Jason Cunliffe wrote:
>Hi
>
>..some heavy discussion recently on the excellent flashcoders list re:
>developing advanced IDEs for flash [authoring], and pros/cons of client side
>vs. distribution nexus of player upgrades. People really pushing the limits
>of flash see big potential for all sorts of smart ui building and client
>side features.. They are making libraries and virtualizing flash. So of
>course I mentioned rebol :)
>
>Does anyone care to help answering this reply critique ?:
>
>thanks
>./Jason
>
>>Rebol is great but it has several fatal flaws.
>>
>>1. Lack of 400 Million Plus users
>>
let's hope Morpheus deal will help here and Rebol starts to be widely
recognized, although - let's get to the poin no 2. ...
>>2. Lack of strong and growing developer base
>>
Acceptance of Rebol can be imo collection of following point:
- for some ppl - rebol is not open-sourced, maybe some part of developer
community fears of RT disappear or buyout ....(look at Omnimark which I
mentioned - now seems to be bought by some company and suddenly closed
product ...)
- library and shell components are being put into commercial versions,
not free ones. Security issues? Maybe. But on the other hand - ppl has
to pay for features found for free with other languages (Python, Perl
...). Free Rebol versions are limited to only TCP kind of communication ...
>>3. Large security problem - Rebol applications can access the local
>>machine.
>>
well, I am not security expert. Rebol lives in "sandbox". If it wants to
access externall directory, it requires user to confirm the action (I
can show you java script code which can do some very nasty things to
your computer, e.g. run "format C:" in IE 5.5 + , by just visiting some
website), so judge for yourself ...
>>It is a great application, but there is a high barrier to entry to the
>>client side without distribution. For Flash, the market for the new
>>version market lags 1 year behind the release date, it is a tough sell
>>to require the download of a new flash player. To tell a consulting
>>customer that an end user has to download and install something is often
>>a death nail.
>>
well, I agree here. RT claims that their touch with Windows registry for
e.g. is minimal. That may be true, but I found several times difficulty
even when using -i switch. I don't remember the case exactly, but it had
something to do with running script from non-rebol directory.
Installation dialog popped-up ...
I work as e-business manager for our company and most of companies
presenting us their products have one strong selling-point - you don't
need to install anything, it just uses user's browser. Managers tend to
like the idea ;-) That's why I don't consider Rebol browser plug-in
being a plug-in at all, unless it knows how to draw into browser's
window area. I imagined something as Oldes showed us with his Rebol
Flash dialect ...
The situation with Rebol could look being bad from what I said, while I
think it is just opposite:
RT surely knows advantages of some points I made. However - they choosed
different strategy. They will concentrate themselves on the
collaborative market. That seems to be the area, where compainies will
spend their money for some years now. You can bet that Carl & co. wants
the best for Rebol, so do I and many of us here. - We just differ in
priorities :-) Many of us would like to see Rebol in multimedia market,
browser plugins, simply attracting or making ppl dependant upon Rebol
thru mass acceptance :-) As RT now concentrates on business users, let's
hope new Rebol programmers will come from this area. If not - we are in
danger, as currently there is very few Rebol developers/consultans/books
available, and IOS is not going to help us to enlarge Rebol's user base ...
-pekr-
