AltME: REBOL3

Messages

Arnold
Well I no one else I will do it, but I need good advice.
Well I => Well if
Geomol
My view on things.
With R2, there were certain shortcommings or errors, that meant, we couldn't finish projects the way, we wanted. I saw R2 as a way to develop cross-platform for the major platforms, Windows, Linux, and OS X. And in a way with very fast development, a short way from idea to product.
For some server-side tasks, R2 was good enough in many ways (approaching perfect), but wanting to do graphics and sound and responsive events, there were obstacles.
The desire for an open-source R2 was there. Then we could fix things ourselves. Not develop new, but fix things to get R2 to work as intended across all platforms.
R3 meant new development, not just a fix of things in R2. But if almost starting over, then it could be from any ground, not only R3. And the world around us changed fast with new mobile platforms. We saw new approaches to solve the problem of 'programming' in efficient and rebolish kind of ways, World, Topaz, Red. I started development of World before Rebol was open source. I don't know if this is the case for Topaz and Red too.
On open source, I see benefit in open source, if things needs to be fixed. I don't always see benefit in open source, when new stuff is being developed. You run into the too many cooks problem. I see huge bloat open source projects all over the place. I am being presented them at university, and I run away in horror. They sucks!
New development should be done by one or very few people, if you want somethings really good out of it. That is my view, and I think, it is true in general. But you can probably find projects, where this is not the case.
I hope, Red succeed. I hope, Topaz succeed (it maybe already did, I haven't followed it). I hope, R3 succeed. I hope, Carl succeed with R4. I will do, what I can to get a success out of the World Programming Language.
There are many old-kind-of-languages out there, and we need new modern next-step future-proof rebolish kind of languages!
Not one such language, but several.
Rebolek
So Carl asks "why are people moving forward with Red as oposed to building on Rebol 3?" and then he mentions that he is working on Rebol 4. In private, not using the public open repo. I guess he answered his own question.
Arnold
Red also started before R3 was open sourced.
I agree with you John that it would have been easier to fix things in R2 then create them in R3. Facts are R2 is closed source and investors interests prohibit open sourcing that. R3 development had already started also as closed source from RT. Carl has managed to free this source from investors interest and could give this source out. But then asking why there is no development is asking for the sake of asking. Nobody was maintaining its source!
Geomol
About succeeding, we already have had success in many situations with these languages (and some crash and burns). I am using the World language every day to do things, I couldn't do with any other language, i know of, in such a short time.
And I use Rebol often, e.g. to produce LaTeX documents using NicomDoc 2, I developed in R2:
http://www.fys.ku.dk/~niclasen/nicomdoc/
Other students at university can't understand, how I can produce LaTeX documents so fast. They have never seen anything like it.
And I have great success these days and weeks developing software in World to produce HW accelerated graphics and 24-bit/96kHz audio. I have waited almost 30 years, since I got my Amiga500, to be able to do the things, I do now. I can thank Carl for showing the way to efficient languages. I use AGG graphics from DRAW in R2 to create the GUI, and it looks very nice. A bit annoying, that I have to go to my Windows PC to have R2 produce the text, as DRAW doesn't work well with fonts under OS X, but it is doable.
We should remember all the good things, and then keep on going to make things even better.
Geomol
(I should say, that the gfx and audio, I'm doing, is in a combination of World and C code, but World working as the scripting part makes the whole thing so much easier. My experiences with this can lead to further development of World.)
Arnold
@Rebolek This 'plan' is still very dependend on getting the access to the repo.
I expected the volunteers to apply in big numbers now I threatened to be willing to help with that. ;-)
Maxim
Arnold, I think you don't understand how Git works.  if you fork the R3 repo you have all of the repo.  there is no need to have access to the repo, you can build your own "official" repo, just like HF did with ren/C.  
the work is about attracting people to your project, if Carl isn't maintaining *his* copy of R3, then that copy is dead... you can work on yours (or another's) and hope it will be good enough to build a community around it.
Arnold
No Maxim, I don't think you understand how this works. There can be a 100 forks, but there is only 1 that is regarded as leading. In our case that one is not maintained and therefor R3 is not maintained, there is no consensus between forks. Outsiders look at the repo and see it is dead as a dodo and so regard R3 not as a viable alternative.
Kaj
R3 is dead, long live R4!
With the emphasis on long
Maxim
yes, Rebol/R3 is dead in terms of development that is true.  Ren-C IS the currently active Rebol3 project.  that's just how it is.
DocKimbel
It is doubtful that Carl would drop the R3 codebase to start from scratch again. I bet that R4 would be more like a re-branding of [R3 + something else].
Another option could also be a "specialized" R3 version for a given domain, like embedded devices.

Arnold
We need a !REBOL4 Group!
And "we" need to take over control over the repo immediately.
Pekr
If there is going to be any repo, maybe it is going to be closed source again :-)
Arnold
If it is closed, in my opinion he better save the effort of creating it.
Rebolek
Why? I believe Carls has fun creating it. Isn't it good enough reason? :)

Last message posted 161 weeks ago.