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REBOL - Official Guide DBMS Scripts

 [1/2] from: rebol::techscribe::com at: 19-Mar-2001 0:02


Dear friends, I really don't *have* time right now to follow the REBOL mailing list regularly. I will, however, *make* time to help anyone with the book and its scripts. 1. Email me directly ([rebol--techscribe--com]), and not on this list, if you want a reasonable response turnaround. I occassionally take a few minutes to look at this list. But very irregularly. 2. Give me the go ahead to subscribe you to the book's mailing list. It's extremely low bandwidth (like one email every three/four months ;-). I do take the time to review and respond to any email sent to that list (you don't have to own the book to subscribe to the list.) 3. I have a working version of the dbms (3rd generation, but still very close to the book). I'll bundle that together in the next few days and email it to anyone who wants it (give me a week to clean up the code and test the cleaned up version). I will also email it as an attachment to the book list. If you're subscribed to the book list, you don't need to send me an email. You'll get it automatically from the list. 4. If you want it, and you're not on the book's mailing list, then please, please email me DIRECTLY [rebol--techscribe--com], and do not simply hit the reply button, because it will end up on this list, and will probably go unnoticed (by me) for some time (and perhaps annoy some people here who have no use for "me toos" regarding the book's scripts). If you hit the reply button by mistake don't be shy. Send me a copy of your email anyway. I don't mind getting two copies. I do want to be able to send you the latest version of the scripts if you have use for them. I don't want to have to check here, to find out if you requested the scripts on this list. I enjoy browsing this list, if time permits. Right now I don't have time. 5. With respect to the dbms dialect: The dialect is based on REBOL's block parsing features, which only became available in REBOL after the dbms chapters had already been written, reviewed by four editors, and had entered the final book production phase (whatever that is). It was too late to make any modifications to the chapter sequence, since the pages had already been numbered, and those chapters had also already been indexed (not very well, but that's a different story). 6. Please note that the DBMS and the dialect were not designed for production environments (although I do use them in that context). They were implemented as a "proof of concept", an attempt to demonstrate REBOL programming techniques (for the then current version of REBOL, which stretched from REBOL 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and ended, during the last month or so of the book's production, with version 2.3). The intention was to challenge REBOL with a "real", and more complex application, see how well REBOL does, and explore and demonstrate REBOL's elegance (and also some bugs and workarounds with the then current version - most notably converting paths to blocks, which has since been fixed in REBOL). 7. I had a working version of the database minus object-navigator, minus mediator, and so on. The code was by far tighter (at most 25% of what it is now), faster and more to the point. The problem was that it wasn't very useful as illustrative code. The single chapter in which I described that version of the dbms was not very popular with the reviewers and editors, most notably with the tech reviewer, who is an experienced REBOL programmer. He had difficulties understanding the code, which suggests that it was too complex for the book and/or it wasn't explained well. I tried to improve the description of the code, but found that there were too many things you had to think of at simultaneously. Each line of code reflected three or four different things at once, such as the format of the data, how the function was iterating over the list of records and internal maintenance of lists at the same time. I was in the midst of the revision work when I woke up early one morning (must've been around four), and realized that I could make my life as a book writer much easier, if I separated the different layers of functionality that were compressed into two 40 line functions into multiple "modules", and have each module deal extensively with its respective taks, so that I could more easily describe what I was doing. The result was the object navigator and the mediator object (really unnecessary for a dbms implementation, necessary, however, IMHO to more easily explain "inner workings"). As a result the dbms chapter became three chapters (or so). And the code got very bloated. I was writing a book, not a streamlined application. I wish I could take the time to revise the dbms and rewrite it based on the previous incarnation that was far more effective (from an application point of view). Not now. 6. I don't mind putting together a pdf file that documents the dbms dialect (the one proble being time ;-). I don't know if I can legally do that (copyright). I don't care if it sells the book, but the "selling the book" aspect may make it easier for me to get a go ahead from the publisher. I'll check into that. Take Care, Elan

 [2/2] from: timewarp:sirius at: 19-Mar-2001 4:03


aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! (suffering from pts) Elan wrote: