>To achieve the sort of flawless operation that your site has would require
>not just the stability of Rebol but also of some well thought out code.
>
>If you reflect on the operation of your site over the last nine months, do
>have you any thoughts about what makes a stable (or non-stable) Rebol cgi
>script? Or indeed any other reflections.
>
>Thanks,
>Brett.
A very good question, Brett, and one that caused me really to think. I use
REBOL for lots of stuff. While I've been programming in various languages
for over 20 years professionally, I am still more of a writer and publisher
than a programmer. We are a small company expanding explosively with far too
few people (and I'm the only programmer). I don't have a lot of time to
spend "polishing" code. If I need a script, I usually need it by yesterday.
So, far too often, my code is nonelegant, even (yes, I admit it) sloppy. But
it gets the job done. Now I've never thought about REBOL in this context
before, but that kind of usage is a true torture test of any language.
My two major tools in the hundreds of websites I maintain and write web
applications for are REBOL and PHP. I am equally sloppy (to put it nicer,
"rushed") in both languages. On consideration of the results, I find REBOL
is more reliable.
Let me sum this up by way of an analogy. Back in 1968, I was in the infantry
in Vietnam. We carried M-16 rifles, which was then a new tactical weapon and
a lot of us troops were complaining it jammed all too often. In fact,
several guys in my unit were using captured AK-47s, the Communist assault
rifle stamped out of old rice cake tins up in China (or so it looked). But
the durn thing was reliable.
So this representitive from Colt Arms (a civilian) came out to my outfit in
the jungle one day. He gave us this great song and dance about how reliable
the M-16 was, yada yada yada. To top it off, he throws an M-16 into a pool
of muddy water. Now I'm sure this demo worked flawlessly at all the other
places he'd been, but when he pulled the rifle out and attempted to fire it,
the sucker essentially embedded its first round in the firing chamber and he
couldn't clear the weapon. A bad, bad thing to have happen if you are in the
middle of a firefight.
Well, American troops being American troops, some smart ass (wasn't me, but
could've been) tossed a captured AK-47 into the same muddy pool. Plucked it
out, and rock and rolled through a whole magazine of ammo without a glitch.
Needless to say, confidence in Colt's baby was not intensified.
That's how I perceive the difference between PHP and REBOL (and ASP and
ColdFusion, et al). In the middle of a firefight (like I GOTTA get an
application up and running TODAY) I reach for REBOL. If I have the leisure
to sight the weapon in, assume an approved firing position, and plenty of
time to snap off lines of code well, yes, there are targets PHP is better
suited for, but this is seldom true in combat or making a small company
profitable on a shoestring budget. Usually, I have no time but a desperate
need, so (like our rifles in Vietnam that never left our sides day or night)
REBOL is the one I sleep with. And like the rifle, it saves my butt from
time to time.
That's the difference.
Of course, it always helps a lot if you know which end dispenses the bullets
or code.
--Ralph Roberts
author REBOL FOR DUMMIES
buy it at http://rebolpress.com
this email (c)2001 Creativity, Inc. 'cause I WILL use the analogy in a book
one of these days<g>
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