English translation of http://rebolfrance.org/propagande/argumentaire.ht

Translation of original French web page at http://rebolfrance.org/propagande/argumentaire.html Please contact me with corrections or comments. Thank you. ./Jason ---------------------------------------------------------- Ten good reasons to use Rebol ! R1: Rebol is cross-platform. R2: Rebol is a polyvalent language. R3: Rebol includes an XML parser. R4: Rebol uses current technology standards. R5: Rebol is a productive language. R6: Rebol is not just a language, it's a coherent solution. R7: Rebol does not need a powerful machine to run well. R8: Dialects allow one to build specialized sub-languages. R9: Rebol does not need an edit/compile/run cycle. R10: The virtual desktop of Rebol/View is a unique way to share information and distribute applications over a network. R1: Rebol is cross-platform. It is avaialable on at least 40 operating systems. For the first time, your products will benefit from maximum distribution with requiring you to do any more work. With Rebol, you can at last develop free from concerns about operating system tricks, or about the architecture of the target machine your application will run on. Based on a virtual machine, the Rebol language behaves identically regardless of its environment. You can propgram on Linux and distribute for Windows CE with any changes or compiling your project! R2: Rebol is a polyvalent language. It's not just used for generating HTML pages. With Rebol, you can certainly create applications designed to work with a web browser, but you can also develop office software (text editors, spreadsheets, ...) even games. For system administrators, Rebol is an excellent alternative for shell programming languages. It helps you automate numerous operations and build utilities quickly. Because of its network programming capabilites, Rebol is perfect for client and server programming and thereby sharing information between computer systems. R3: Rebol includes an XML parser. A single word transforms an XML document into a data block ready for Rebol processing. The XML parser is integrated with all versions of Rebol, and needs bo other additions to be used. R4: Rebol uses current technology standards. Network oriented, Rebol is based fully on the set of TCP/IP protocols (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP,...) Databases are accessible throught the ODBC protocol for Windows family of servers. If you do not wish to that software platform, you can also directly access Oracle or MYSQL databases. The integrated XML parser lets one implement strong interoperability with other products. R5: Rebol is a productive language. It's a recognized and proven phenomenon: a Rebol program is generally much, much more concise than its equivalent in another language. Rebol code smaller, easier to maintain, faster to write and send accross networks. An HTTP server can be written in Rebol with just thirty lines of code! A single lines is sufficient to create a window with a button to dislay a message on the screen : view layout [ button "Message" [ print "Rebol is cool" ] ] {Note: display illustration from http://rebolfrance.org/argumentaire1.jpg} R6: Rebol is not just a language, it's a coherent solution. Rebol is not just a language, it's a complete solution from client station to enterprise server. This adaptability is possible thanks to the four different versions of the Rebol interpreter, each being more or less specialized in a domain of capabilities : Rebol/Core is a very light product especially suitable for creating n-tier applications on an HTTP server. The user interface for such is managed by a browser using HTML. Processing is dobne server-side. You may also use Rebol/Core to build network utilities or maintenance tools (generating HTML pages, monitoring server activity, manipulating e-mail mailboxes, ... ) Rebol/View makes graphic intefaces. This makes it an excelletn solution for writing desktop apps (tst editor, spreadheet, ...) but also games for both off-line and on-line use. To support its virtual desktop, it also lets one use Rebol applcaitions stored on an HTTP server. Rebol/View is thus more than an interpreter, it's really a workflow environment for sharing user data and programs. The Rebol/View plug-in is a module for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. It runs a Rebol script directly in the browser. This extension is above all intended for people using Rebol/View applcations over Internet. {Note: This page was clearly written some time ago. Tragically, last year Microsoft killed prior Explorer plug-ins, so the Rebol/View web plugin will not work in Internet Explorer beyond version 5. You need to verify about Netscape, Mozilla and others } Rebol/Command lets you create graphic interfaces and access the major databases, thus enabling 2-tier applications (direct client access to database), and n-tier applications (client access to database via middleware server apps). {note: English version in HTML of comparison table to come. Meanwhile..} Core View View/Pro Plug-in View Command Command/View Application type Local X X X X X Distrbuted X X X X X X CGI scripting X X X X X Graphic Interface X X X X Virtual Desktop X X X Data acces TCP/IP protocols X X X X X X XML X X X X X X ODBC X X Oracle X X MySQL X X Advanced Features Security X X X X X X Use of native dyunamic libraries X X X Shell access X X X Encryption X X X R7: Rebol does not need a powerful machine to run well. The installed Rebol interpreter uses only a few hundred Kb of disk space. For graphic applications with a user interface, any 200Mhz x86 processor and 32Mb RAM is sufficient. Needless to say, Rebol applications don't force you to upgrade your computer! R8: Dialects allow one to build specialized sub-languages. Dialects are one of the most special and interesting features of Rebol. In fact, Rebol lets you define other languages, in other words, to build interpreters. For example, contructing graphic interfaces in Rebol/View is done through a dialect called VID. You can define dialects according to your needs and use them in different project. One can conceive dialects to build games, to describe program installation steps, to write a BASIC interpreter whose code is combined within Rebol, define management rules, etc.. R9: Rebol does not need an edit/compile/run cycle. Rebol does not need an edit/compile/run cycle. However, Rebol is not accurately described as an interpreted langauge. It uses a dictionary where the words you have defined in your application are compiled. This compilation stage is immediate and performed every time your program runs. So it is not necessary to spend a long time compiling before testing your work. If your program needs to be distributed but without revealing the source code, you can use the RunTime module {Encap} which packages your program into a single self-contained independent executable. R10: The virtual desktop of Rebol/View is a unique way to share information and distribute applications over a network. To do this, you can connect with your enterprise Intranet or to the Internet. You can access web documents along with applications (Reblets) and information resources (Rebsites). For example, visit the RebolFrance Rebsite.

errata: this one is better R1: Rebol is cross-platform. It is available on some 40 operating systems. For the first time, your products will benefit from maximum distribution without requiring you to do any more work. With Rebol, you can at last develop free from concerns about operating system tricks, or the architecture of the target machine your application will run on. Based on a virtual machine, the Rebol language behaves identically regardless of its environment. You can program on Linux and distribute for Windows CE without any changes or compiling your project!