Incomplete Documentation was: [RE: Re: nntp question]

[1/9] from: max:ordigraphe at: 31-Aug-2001 10:02

Ahem, Can I second the motion... sorry for the long post. I am a reboler since version 1.x and I am seriously addicted, there is no doubt on that. BUT, I do understand Mr. Petr Krenzelok's cause. I face the same problem EVERY single time I tackle a new coding problem and try to expand on my rebol knowledge. The PDF guide was a god send. But then, There should be 3 or 4 of such guides because its clear that currently There are MUCH MORE things under the hood of rebol than is documented. Not everyone has the time (Yes its PAINFULLY slow) nor the ability to deciphre code by printing it out... especially the code from RT which is quite frankly scary (although enlightning)! /View by itself is PAINFULLY under-documented. It seems that every serious question gets answered here on this list, but man... how did all of you guys (and gals ?) figure out all of this, imagine the time collectively used-up. Ayways, I'm just putting my vote for -EXPLICIT- and complete documentation (cause I'm sure RT monitors). maybe if enough of us manifest, more effort (i.e. time and money I guess) will be spent on this rebol problem... cause as Petr pointed out, Other next-generation languages get more documentation support... And I do think that this can be a factor in choosing to learn one of these languages... I learned rebol before I knew Python existed... but if I had known about both at the same time.... But then, Ive been an amigan since 1991 (programmed heavily on it :-) and I consider Carl A god ;-) ... so It feels like the same than back then... You -Know- its better... but its hard to explain -why- to others... remember trying to explain why multi-tasking was good... then you'd get a seriously stupid answer like: "yeah but you can only type at one place at a time so, what's the use?"... aarrgh! I don't think its normal to realise that a language is limited not by its features but by its documentation... What's the point in adding features few will use because -EXPLICIT- documentation exists for some selected topics only, like parsing which is VERY well documented (hey, I have to give credit where its due! :-). This is NOT a flame for RT, its just the expression of the only problem I face with rebol day in and day out. cheers! -Max Contrary to popular belief, Unix IS user-friendly... its just picky on who it considers a friend

[2/9] from: ammoncooke:yaho:o at: 31-Aug-2001 9:15

Sounds awesome! Couldn't we, as a group, colectively produce most of this? Ammon

[3/9] from: max:ordigraphe at: 31-Aug-2001 12:02

Yes, but it requires organization... And someone to do it, AND THEN STICK WITH IT ;-) whoa a second massive mail today... sorry. I'd like to be a part of it but some things are keeping me back. I do not have access to a server to host these kind of tools. When I asked about creating a user-oriented site a while ago, there are many facets that I wanted to address. The reaction on this list was rather weak, but I imagine that this is because of failed past attempts... or general misinterest I do not know. One of the tools I wish to build is a library archive (NOT A SCRIPT ARCHIVE). with prefix registration and MANDATORY documentation so that we can all share code without conflict and can update, and automatically send notifications, bla, bla, bla.... But I need a server, And so far the -free- sites all have MAJOR downsides like not allowing cgi or limiting file names to certain extensions or having server-side placed banners, or intentionally SLOW traffic throttling, etc. I don't have money to spare, with my family, to pay for a site and register a domain name. I have contacted a very promising someone (listening to this list) and he'd agreed to host some of my creations... I have even sent him a very preliminary site example this week, hidden somewhere. But so far, my latest mails have been silently unanswered (no time I guess, cause I know that he's really busy). This site is still only a layout with graphic design but I put a full day just putting it together (building my own background, playing around with layout and generally getting a nice look). So I think I'm serious enough. I AM willing to put real time and would really like to provide tools so that we as a community can start to function like the autonomous people we are (I mean rebolers are still outcasts ;-)... But unless someone can give me a space to work with, All I can do is think of the day when it will happen. I used to have a web-server installed for my personnal use at work but this is not currently possible, so I cannot realy work here. I need a web-based server with an ftp account, to send files and test over the web. I do have my own web-server script which serves rebol scripts and html... but I know that I'm asking for trouble if I start coding a real site with it. Some cgi scripts or servers do not migrate well, I have discovered, by the accounts of others. My personnal suggestions is to include or link to the 'zine articles into the documentation system if it ever come to birth. Anyways, any suggestions discussed in this list concerning shared REBOL tools are interesting to me and I keep a record of what has been said... or wished... cheers! -Max Contrary to popular belief, Unix IS user-friendly... its just picky on who it considers a friend

[4/9] from: ammoncooke:yah:oo at: 31-Aug-2001 10:47

Build it, they WILL come! There was recently a thread on this mail list about RebMail, a real mail client. The thread lasted a few mails, & everybody was done, or seemed to be. I simply went on over to Yahoo!, created a group, anounced it. What do ya know I instantly had 2 users, within a week I had 10, now the number of users is 14, with about 5 serious developers. There have been 65 mails since the 17th of August. Development is going well. Create a place that users can gather to develop this system, at this point it doesn't need its own website, just a place to talk. Put that together anounce it, cordinate the results. You will soon find someone that could come up with some space on a webserver somewhere, if nothing else, everyone could pay $1. Be creative. Enjoy!! Ammon

[5/9] from: geza67:freestart:hu at: 31-Aug-2001 21:07

Hello Maxim,

>sorry for the long post.

Sorry for my long & exhaustive reflection, too :-))

> I am a reboler since version 1.x and I am seriously addicted, there is > no doubt on that.

I wandered through plenty of languages as well, from the programmers' standard C - Pascal, through Forth, VB. Made shorter-longer excursions with Prolog (I still honor the AI paradigm but most of my ideas really don't need it), Haskell, LISP-Scheme. Then came REBOL which is a strange phenomenon being semantically feminine (i.e. highly unpredictable ;-) (at least compared to pure lambda-originated LISP & alikes), iteration-based (I read somewhere that the tail recursion was dropped due to efficiency issues :-(( ) having some functional flares and a unique congruency between data and program code (not a macro-like semi-solution for self-modifying code).

> guides because its clear that currently There are MUCH MORE things under > the hood of rebol than is documented. Not everyone has the time (Yes > its PAINFULLY slow) nor the ability to deciphre code by printing it > out... especially the code from RT which is quite frankly scary > (although enlightning)!

I know it is blasphemy to compare the REBOLution & RT to microsofty ;-) but the issue is quite the same: RT and ms, they both KNOW their intellectual child from toe to scalp and use such "evil" shortcuts that we mere humans (hmmm, mere UNDERINFORMED humans ...) could only dream of.

> /View by itself is PAINFULLY under-documented. It seems that every

Actually I put a similar letter to yours in the circulation some months ago, with the intention of making some waves and a little bit of awareness & beneficial rage that many of REBOLers have PAID for this product AND get really warm and friendly but essentially useless handshakes from RT people instead of a solid documentation covering: - the execution paradigm of REBOL (I think it is a shame, that a non-RT outsider guru, L.Mecir elucidated REBOL word/value bindig pointing out some conceptual errors of the _official_ Core Guide (PDF) (by RT itself ... of course ...) - by now undocumented but being-there (& used-by-RT) functions - View - its underdocumented nature IMHO severely burdens REBOL's widespread use for major projects needing FULL understanding of the underlying GUI paradigm. - low-level internet (TCP/IP) protocol and port programming

> serious question gets answered here on this list, but man... how did all > of you guys (and gals ?) figure out all of this, imagine the time

by: write %system.r mold system ;-)))

> languages... I learned rebol before I knew Python existed... but if I > had known about both at the same time....

Yes, that's the painful experience I lived through, too! The issue between e.g. Python and REBOL is striking: Python is FREE, has lots of modules (When will get REBOL a REAL module/dependecy support - I think, it's a long way ...), possibility of byte-compiling and binary packaging, system-level library (even COM!) and shell access, standard GUI wrapping (Tkinter) just to name a few virtues. Then, you could ask why haven't I converted to Python? Python is very tempting but REBOL is smarter. Although there is a lot in Python at the language-level (on module level - availability of all kinds of pluggable goodies - it beats REBOL in a hiss ;-) ) like REAL object-orientation (not just structure cloning and formal encapsulation which is IMHO a very silly and primitive approach in REBOL; but classes/instances, multiple inheritance as well), rich (but a bit awkward) list comprehension. On the other side, it's file handling is merely conventional, there is no possibility of extending the language with control structures or alikes, no macro support (no possibility of mixing data and code :-((( ), no intuitive _builtin_ data types (like date, url, path etc.in REBOL). Although Tk is a bit old-fashioned GUI-delegate, it is solid and deeply documented ...

> But then, Ive been an amigan since 1991 (programmed heavily on it :-) > and I consider Carl A god ;-) ... so It feels like the same than back

I was an AtariSTan thus I don't have this superhuman prejudice :-))) Carl et al are smart at computing but I am still afraid that REBOL will have a similar fate like the rise and fall of Betamax against VHS ;-((( Maybe we should learn some open source language as well to be future-proof ?? ;-)

> This is NOT a flame for RT, its just the expression of the only problem > I face with rebol day in and day out.

Ditto!

> "Contrary to popular belief, Unix IS user-friendly... > its just picky on who it considers a friend"

Jus as REBOL does! :-) -- Best regards, Geza mailto:[geza67--freestart--hu]

[6/9] from: petr::krenzelok::trz::cz at: 31-Aug-2001 22:05

Hi, it is even worse than you might think :-) Here is something which remainds me of bad ms practices, forcing ppl to something they don't want to do. Go to rebol.org site and try mail list archive. You will see following info: To view the userlist archive here at REBOL.org, follow these simple steps: Download REBOL/View from http://www.rebol.com/ Get it in the developer section, it's FREE and available for more than 20 platforms. Install it... it's not that hard, really. Run it and click on REBOL.com, then Sites, then REBOL.org You're now on the REBOL.org REBsite so select the List Archive and enjoy. So one would expect some Rebol script interface. BUT - the only one icon there is redirection back to rebol.org site: http://www.rebol.org/userlist/html/index.html- so the only one intention is to force ppl to download rebol/View - completly stupid and nonprofessional. Someone responsible should remove it! I will not better mention bug in /Command fastCGI doc which makes one and only example unoperable. I even haven't received comment from feedback. The one and only full time feedback person - Bo - is not with RT anymore too. Although it is internal thing of RT, it should be probably adressed. The more ppl downloads rebol, the situation will be only worse without proper support. Core pdf is fine, but lacking behind too - e.g. it uses /nowait refinement, while it is /no-wait for quite some time already ... So, so far - the best docs for rebol is - ppl on this ml :-) -pekr-

[7/9] from: etienne:alaurent:free at: 31-Aug-2001 23:11

Hi, all I'm completely ok with Max :-; And, to go further, I think things could be different (more developpers, more doc, more ... what you want) if Rebol technologie was FREE ! Some great technologies (Zope for example) became great because theses technologies became FREE !! --- Etienne --- Le ven, 31 ao� 2001, vous avez �crit :

[8/9] from: pablohar::hotmail at: 2-Sep-2001 17:40

First.. Greeting to all the list Second.. I don't sure if rebol can be free and remains in the market but maybe they can give a "student or non-commercial" licenses to the people that can't afford to pay us $350 for the rebol command only to play with it I saw licences like this on Smalltalk places (in certain cases they give you a non commercial licenses for as low as us$99 while the commercial is more than us$ 900) And please forgive my poor english I'm working on it

[9/9] from: john:thousand-hills at: 2-Sep-2001 7:55

I don't know. My company won't use freeware -you are expecting too much. Support, power, ease of use , usable, and FREE? Try purchasing Microsoft SQL (for instance) -next try getting support. Laugh, laugh... Compare the differences.. John At 05:40 PM 9/2/2001 -0300, you wrote: