Good thoughts, Chaz. I think, though, dialects would not be a particularly
helpful. Scoping rules are deeply intrinsic to programming languages and their
implementations. I doubt the problem could be fixed while preserving backwards
semantic compatibility. However, the world of Rebol scripts still to write is
much larger than the world of scripts already written, so now would be the time
to make any fundamental changes.
The current discussions of weirdnesses, idiosyncracies, and so forth related to
scope, garbage collection, protection via USE, etc. are all verging around the
same space. With no disrespect intended to Carl or anyone on the Rebol team
(they're certainly tracing historical mistakes, Cf. McCarthy's early probs.
nailing the scope issue in Lisp) there is at lease one good system, very similar
in many ways to Rebol, from which they could steal liberally: Scheme. It's
lexically scoped, has first-class closures which are in essence a stronger, more
formal block, a fundamental symbol / object distinction, and GC... *very*
similar to Rebol indeed, but with a unified formal approach to scope, GC, and so
on. It's a beautiful, simple, and powerful language that has never really gone
mainstream due to its Lisp-like legacy and syntax, which most folks don't grok.
IMO, Rebol could easily be the Scheme for the masses... but every little
idiosyncracy and gotcha -w- scope, GC, and so on will create adoption friction.
Unsolicited $0.02,
jb
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> At 07:34 AM 6/16/00 +0200, you wrote:
> >
> >
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> >> Just a thought.... most of the "philosophical" questions / discussions
> here
> >> about i.e. object lifecycle, scope, bindings, etc. would be simply,
> >> formally, and workably solved if Rebol had a true lexical scoping model.
> As
> >> it is, it's sort of the worst of both worlds: it's semi-fluid scope with
> >> explicit manipulation coupled with a sort of hybrid object / object
> >> lifecycle model that is never really formally elaborated. Without knowing
> >> the internal nitty gritty of the implementation, it's hard to say if
> this is
> >> endemic to Rebol or not, but looking at i.e. the potential solutions to
> >> similar problems in early Lisps vs. Scheme, I'd say there's a whole lot of
> >> good reasons for solving the problem now.
> >
> >Just a note - isn't it too late, if two book on REBOL are already finished?
> >Elan, Ralph? :-)
> >
> >-pekr-
>
> Not too late, if solution is implemented correctly. Since the strength of
> Rebol is dialecting, then we should maintain backward compatibility through
> dialects. Rebol/Core 2.x scripts would not break if there was a "2.0
> dialect" included with Rebol/Core 3.x.
>
> RT needs more staff and money, so Core team can focus on philosophical
> issues, and special task forces can focus on integrating Core with other
> technologies (Graphics = /View, OS and Databases = /Command, WebServer =
> /Apache).
>
> By overcoming implementation challenges, the task forces gain knowledge
> that they can bring back to /Core that will empower RT to overcome new
> challenges when integrating into other technologies (imagine
> multiprocessing = /Beowulf, Home Automation = /Base, streaming media and
> telephony = /Yell)
>
> But the real money may be in business-to-business. Imagine your company has
> developed an incredible software product whose functionality can be
> extended through use of a C API. Users would much rather have an easier
> means than going through a write-compile-test cycle to extend the product's
> functionality. If Rebol was integrated into the product, then user
> productivity would skyrocket.
> Case in point, Remedy Corporation has a workflow product called Action
> Request System (ARS). The 2 means of accessing its power are through a GUI
> and the ARS C API. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, users
> created ARSPerl, a perl module that encapsulates the function of the Remedy
> ARS C API. To my way of thinking, they turned to Perl because RT wasn't
> there to save them. What other opportunities might RT missing?
