[REBOL] lost the case ...
From: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 4-Nov-2003 0:34
Hi,
today I lost second person who started with rebol some few months ago.
Sorry if you will find my comments off-topic, or negative, but I can't
resist. And what is more - I think current situation deserves some
criticism. Maybe you will tell me you don't know how my lamenting can
help rebol, but otoh I may ask you - how current state of no visible
progress can help it either.
I know there are several groups of rebol users - those who are real
rebol hackers, who can accomplish really nice things using rebol, but
otoh there is group of ppl, who will start to be frustrated, after some
time of usage.
Today I met such person - my long time friend. He is a programmer -
average one. He tried to do very simply thing - press the button and
insert some text into area, into caret position. While I am sure few
even few lines solutions could be posted, the problem is, that my friend
does not care anymore. And sadly - I have to agree with him, as the
cause is:
- VID is 70 - 80% complete, which means it pushes ppl to adapt styles.
- styles don't provide proper encapsulation - why such thing as caret
position of certain face is not simply a property of face object ...
- styles are inconsistent from the point of user data storage
- styles are incomplete in 'feel area of behavior
- lack of View documentation ...
I am (was) a programmer too. I think I know what I talk about. Don't get
me wrong - VID is beautifull concept, but in current state it pushes ppl
to often try to hack into View level, but then - there is a lack of
documentation. When I learned Visual Objects, there were 2 things
important - event model and class hierarchy. The same goes for View imo
- I remember that with View beta 1 came one doc, which left VID
completly - it explained how concept of faces, events, its filtering
etc. works. I think, that from programmer's perspective, something like
that should reappear and upon such doc things like VID should be
explained. VID only docs are nice, if VID itself is complete enough so
it will not push ppl to touch under its level ...
I am also asked - for nearly one year - hey, - what is new with rebol?
And I have to say - nothing. SDK here or there does not count. I know
that money are priority probably, but in such case, I think that is is
inproper identification of long term business strategy. I would not
bother with SDK for BSD or so, but would focus onto bringing Rebol to
mobile devices arena, OSx etc.
Now read those and look into the dates:
November 2002:
Monthly "State of the REBOLion" updates - Starting as of this message we
will provide regular monthly news updates to keep you informed. (We also
hope to recruit members from the REBOL community to contribute useful
information, hints, docs, and scripts.)
http://www.rebol.com/news3203.html
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=199
I think that those things should not be stated, unless fullfilled in
reasonable enought timeframe. From external pov rebol totally lacks on
development. I was trying to be helpfull as much as I could to my two
friends, but they are not blind and I refuse to fool them around. I was
also asked some two years ago to write about View for magazine of 12K
monthly issues sold, but I refuse to, because of inability to guarantee
any single thing regarding rebol's future. Gee, last official View
release was when?
Well, sadly I have to admit, that Rebol is becoming another Amiga - I
will use it till the last day, but to be fair I would really have to
think twice before suggesting Rebol to newcomers.
Yesterday I received renewal for payment of rebol.cz domain. Some time
ago I had intention to build some czech portal. I expected someone to
help. I expected growing community, but now I think I will let the
domain go. Should I do it for 3 - 8 active rebols in Czech Republic? Ask
yourself how many rebols there are in other countries?
Rebol was/is not succesfull in generating criticall mass of
developers/users, so that most rebollers have another primar jobs and
having less and less time for rebol related projects. I feel sorry for
loosing two ppl to rebol case, but untill there is publicly stated short
and long term strategy and at least some sign of sticking to published
words I wonder if situation can get any better soon.
Sorry for frustration, but I think I am not only one thinking along the
lines ...
-pekr-
