Port request: Rebol

[A2000]

Now that Rebol (www.rebol.com) will be Open Source soon, is somebody thinking about making a port for our device? I think it would fit nicely into the concepts of the Pandora.


For your information: Rebol is a programming language with some unique concepts which is powerful but generates apps with very small footprint and has inbuilt network functionality. It was made by Carl Sassenrath who programmed "exec" the core of AmigaOS.


A2000

 

[_wb_]

"Open Source soon" is not good enough, it has to be "Open Source now"


Given that it already seems to be available on several platforms (including x86 linux), we can assume that the code is written with portability in mind, so once the code is available for download, it could be just a matter of ./configure; make and putting the result in a PND.


Any idea when they will release the source?

 

[A2000]

Carl Sassenrath wrote here (www.rebol.com/article/0511.html)that he wants to release it at the 1st of October.


It would be really great if one/you? can provide a port soon after .

 

[skeezix]

If you mean REBOL the language/sdk/thing, its pretty "big" (a lot of components, a lot of options.) Porting that might just be a tonne of work, depends what sort of requirementd it has (other toolkits, demands on memory and space, etc and so on.)


"can provide a port soon" may be asking a lot for someone


jeff

 

[A2000]

"can provide a port soon" may be asking a lot for someone


jeff

As I haven't done anything in that direction yet I was just refering to _wb_'s "could be just a matter of ./configure; make and putting the result in a PND".


Well, the latter was the answer I wished to hear .

 

[A2000]

Bump.


Now it's "Open source now" (on Github)! Look here: http://www.rebol.com/cgi-bin/blog.r?view=0519 for more information.


Hope someone is going to port it.


A2000

 

[ekianjo]

Why is the reason to port it? Rebol is far from being a popular language and there's not much available for it. Porting should only be prioritized when there is a good reason to do it.

 

[elwing]

Why is the reason to port it? Rebol is far from being a popular language and there's not much available for it. Porting should only be prioritized when there is a good reason to do it.

the important question is rather "why not?", I always consider that the more, the better. now good luck finding someone with time to lose porting that...

 

[ekianjo]

Why not? Because there are few porters on Pandora and it is great for them to port things that people use - it's better for them and for the Pandora users overall. Let's make good use of our resources, there is a lot of software still missing on Pandora and Rebol is not probably going to be useful for many users.

 

[elwing]

I can't disagree, but the more porting suggestion the better. porter won't lose time on something they deem not important

 

[dreamer]

Of course it's nice to have more tools available. So people can say "It [the pandora] even runs REBOL!"


But, what's the use of Rebol actually? I haven't heard about it until today. On wikipedia it is described as being particularly usefull in creating new languages/tools with. Sounds quite interesting, but why does OP want it exactly?

 

[elwing]

can't disagree about rebol, never heard about it before today but spreading information about software going open source that we can port is always a good idea i think... well, when a port might be possible... no "I want WoW" threads... lol

 

[A2000]

Of course it's nice to have more tools available. So people can say "It [the pandora] even runs REBOL!"


But, what's the use of Rebol actually? I haven't heard about it until today. On wikipedia it is described as being particularly usefull in creating new languages/tools with. Sounds quite interesting, but why does OP want it exactly?

Because one can design lightweight apps. Quote from rebol-website:

Most applications are typically measured in 10's of KB, not 10's of MB

. I think that perfectly suites the Pandora. Look at this quick overview for starters to get an impression of it's capabilities: http://www.rebol.com/nutshell.html

 

[dreamer]

Yes, but WHO is going to use it?


Seems quite a specific and niche programming language. I don't think anyone is going to start using it just because of that simplistic quote (besides, MBs are cheap these days ).


But, if you port it to the pandora: hurray!

 

[M-HT]

I tried it out of curiosity (I didn't know Rebol before).


Compiling it was simple.


It's marked as "REBOL 3.0 [Alpha Test]" with following warning: "For testing purposes only. Use at your own risk.".


I tried some simple one-line examples which worked.


GUI is not included (yet?), other than that, I don't know what is/isn't included.


Without GUI it's probably not that useful (on Pandora), so the release should wait until the GUI is available.

 

[A2000]

Yes, but WHO is going to use it?


Seems quite a specific and niche programming language. I don't think anyone is going to start using it just because of that simplistic quote (besides, MBs are cheap these days ).


But, if you port it to the pandora: hurray!

You might be right that nobody will use it. But maybe someone without programming experience feels attracted by the simplicity of this language?


And yes, memory is cheap this days. But for me thinking this way is wrong in general. We've seen unnumerous new computers/devices in the last 30 years of home computers/personal computers. Each machine was times more powerful than one of the previous generation. But what has been done with this power? Your applications are 10 times bigger and 10 times bigger than that of the previous generation. You won almost nothing.


Then there came new devices: cellphones which could run programs. And they where as powerful as your computer 15 years ago. So programmers began to program remakes of games and application they used to program 15 years ago. And some found out that an app could be done with just some lines of javascript and a small database. And the rise of smartphones and tablet showed us that a lot of people are satisfied with small, sometimes simple, apps with less inbuilt functions but more flexibility, lower price and easier access. And these apps can also be written in rebol.

 

[ekianjo]

You might be right that nobody will use it. But maybe someone without programming experience feels attracted by the simplicity of this language?

Beginners will be attracted to communities that have a lot of support, rather. If they have a question on REBOL, good luck finding the answer.