Language Popularity & Network Effects; Ruby & Mongrel

This is true in theory but in actuality I think it often does make them more expensive because most n minority languages that are established as minority languages that wont disappear tomorrow are already niche languages, and to get that niche support companies often have to pay more. frankly I am at a loss as to what Rebol's niche could be. Cheers, Bryan Rasmussen

Flash/Flex area - small, agile, distributed self-served PLATFORM, not just a language. There is long term plan - Altissimo - mixture of ViewTop, IOS, Altme, platform for small distributed apps. Another niche? Embedded area? We will see ... Petr

An online desktop then, but with no need of a central server owned by others? A Google for "online desktop" turns up plenty of attempts, but I suspect all of them are based on central-servers. In other words, designed for lock-in. (No time to test them. I looked at the offerings a year or so back, and some looked promising in that they were relatively responsive, while others were horribly slow.) But won't those who don't like the central server approach also be the ones who expect the alternative to be completely open-source? (REBOL would also be great for a distributed social network, except those who don't like the current social networks being central-server based are not going to accept an alternative with software that isn't open-source.) But yes, technically, REBOL would be great in both those areas. And ought to able to attract those who would like an online desktop/platform and don't care about how it's done. (I'm pretty sure a distributed social-network's a non-starter though.) -- Carl Read.

-- //Alessandro http://sguish.wordpress.com http://laccio.wordpress.com

It's not just 'big' companies though, but any group who has control of those servers when you can't move your software/data elsewhere without losing some or a lot of its functionality. -- Carl Read.

-- //Alessandro http://sguish.wordpress.com http://laccio.wordpress.com

Bam! I can tell you - but I can't tell you where - that there are places where rebol is used extensive for "messaging" as in TCP/IP. There's may be more than what I know of - but there are organizations that (and big ones at that) that may be using rebol, but are not going to advertise it like google might advertise its use of python.

I use rebol extensively for web scripting not so much for for network stuff, for that it runs rings around python. but read on....

Oh if rebol could just report the file and line number of an error! Python has really got it down for error handling! To elaborate on what Alessandro has said about protocols - absolutely. And they don't have to be native, could be mezzanine or in libraries. Speaking of libraries, what many, many who examine rebol and remark to me is "Why is there no libraries? What is up with that? Is this really a serious programming language?" Given rebol.org as a starting point, there should be libraries. Libraries that are reviewed vetted and blessed by RT. In my opinion, rebol is crippled without that, because fellow programmers are telling me that is one thing that rebol is missing.. I know, I've said this before, many times on this ML. I'll probably say it again. tim

I've tried 3 or 4 of them out of curiosity, and all the ones I tried extremely laggy. I don't see how it's possible to get anything done on them.

REBOL is the most productive programming environment I have used for quick and dirty stuff. yet for all its qualities, its the least documented framework I've ever used. sometimes you realise that its as huge as .net and you never knew! we all know R3 will address a lot of this. and its not just talk, the guys handling the task, really are writting down a lot more than I can remember in prior iterations.

yep. no other language allows you to define DSL, parse strings, create guis, define stylesheets, embed a rich client all using ONE single datatype rich language. I wonder why many of the serious REBOLers are not using REBOL more. So far I have used REBOL in all environments I can think of, from async concurrent multi -port tcp enterprise servers, XML db use, web-service clients, web-service servers, advanced node-based graphical pipelines, neural nets (one done entirely in REBOL :-), http clients accessing servers providing non browser guis, I've even made a crawler robot for a site built which does nasty anti-robot stuff (using cookies and timer + counter based redirected urls). I've basically built an asp contender with remark ( but much leaner and vastly less sprawled, one very simple object model handles everything, from resources to master templates, to db, styles, etc). I've programmed one of the most advanced procedural node engines I've used so far, in any platform and a lot of other things, and well, its always easier *overall* with rebol. its not always faster in execution, but there is soooo much less clutter in the way of having to program against the language or its framework. I really find that its always simpler, even when you must roll up your sleeves to solve a little issue which REBOL doesn't support natively.

I agree, but I find it already does, to a large extent. much more than many other systems without needing to understand much, I find. just the use of something like save and load is a god send you quickly long for in all other environments. for many, rebol goes against the long entrenched idea that complex things are more capable. some things are much less necessary in REBOL. so its hard to accept to release some coding habits in order to adopt another coding style. Having done REBOLing almost exclusively for so long now, I'm finding it hard to adapt to other languages now. simply cause everything just seems bloated and over-engineered, when in the end, it adds nothing to the actual delivered application. the issue is that simple things like an open field of grass, are harder to use in order to arrive somewhere, cause there is no obvious destination, there is more burden on the capacity of the architect. in complex systems, the architect is so tethered, that in fact, his role is reduced to implementing a predefinied path. so it is easier, but in the end, you are just as equal as every other person using a specific system. less capable engineers/architects cannot fathom using REBOL (I am talking experience here, hehe), cause its too open, not structured enough...and they are actually reminded that they lack something in what should be their primary qualities. just like bad managers often lack the qualities of being able to trust their own gut feelings, changing stuff, meddling and many other project/team destructing habits. I'm not saying R2 is perfect. some things are lacking, only that many people downsize it, when I have found that with minimal actual investement... its actually already capable of just about everything people keep saying it isn't. (this is a general reply... and not specific to your own comments... but its a recurring thread which I just wanted to address after having done REBOL professionaly for about 1 1/2 years almost full-time). there are big servers running mission critical stuff, for surprising companies... using REBOL... its just not something people advertise. they really don't care... as long as it works. the only issue I personnaly have is that the view engine (not vid which is built over it and is very flexible) is a bit too closed up, because eons ago, it was limited so that it would be the same on about 15 different platforms. that vision has changed a bit now, so R3 will be much more open to being adapted to the host, in order to benefit from each host's advantages... just like it should be. end users don't care how things are coded... but they really care when you change the way they are used to using software on their platform.... a common recurring comment... "what, no icon dropping? wtf?" -MAx

Even the one-liners can extend the basic functionality of the mezzanine and be very enlightening to new and( in my case anyway) old programmers.

Much thought to give about how to organize them, for sure.

You mean, like follow-up and follow-thru? Hahaha! One step at a time and you get there. tim