* Heather Arrington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [050705 08:34]:
> Hello REBOL Community,
>
>
>
> My name is Heather Arrington and I work for Risen World Technologies - a new
> company created to serve as the promotional arm for REBOL Technologies.
> Risen's vision is to grow the market for the entire REBOL community.
>
>
>
> Part of my role at Risen World is to work with the REBOL community. Prior
> to Risen World I spent four years with Handango, a mobile software delivery
> company. A good portion of my role at Handango was working with the
> developer community. I look forward to a similar role with REBOL. From
> time to time I will use this forum to gather information and mass
> communicate.
>
>
>
> I met with Carl and Cindy last week, and they made it very clear that the
> developer community is the heart and soul of REBOL. Please send me your
> comments and opinions on how you would like to see the REBOL community grow
> moving forward. My goal is to serve you.
Hello Heather:
I'm co-owner of a small web programming company. We deliver content
using perl written by the other owner, python, rebol, and javascript
written by myself. I've used python and rebol for almost 5 years now.
Rebol runs rings around the other languages that we use. I have found
it to be hugely productive. However rebol has a much smaller user base
and code base than the others, and there are times when I must use
python - to make a long story short - for that reason.
I am hoping that as rebol grows that more "out of the box" libraries
will be made available. This is the strength of the python and perl
communities. rebol.org is progressing in the direction, I hope.
I use two "out of the box" rebol libraries that I highly recommend:
'mysql-protocol by Nenad Rakocevic
'ml by Andrew Martin.
Data retrieval by mysql-protocol is very efficient and 'ml is a
multiple of times more efficient for rendering html than is (for
instance) the python HtmlGen library.
I've built on top of both an object system that I call 'mu
that handles forms and database access.
I'm also now developing another rebol-based system that
I call 'fdb.
'fdb has a parser section and a deployment section. The parser
decomposes an html form into data structures that are used for code
generation and for database definitions.
Currently the code generated is for python, and I have python modules
that handle the generated code. These modules can produce a form with
hundreds of input items as a back end or front end to a database with
only a couple of lines of code.
FDB is indeed a 'RAD' development tool. Shortly I will have an fdb
deployment module for rebol using 'mu.
I want to share some thoughts that are based on my experiences and the
observations of associates of mine: These associates are members of
much larger organizations than mine. Again, I mention python as a
comparison.
Many of us believe that python "scales" better than rebol and perl.
These opinions are derived from python's strict and conservative
engineering.
That engineering is part of python's immutable syntax, but rebol has
enormous potential for "needs-based" engineering because of its
reflective power, and the ability to customize control structures.
IOWS, rebol can be just a "strictly" engineered as python, but a a way
that allows greater flexibility.
Many threads in this Mailing List over the years have spoken about the
need for a "killer app" to put rebol over the top. The corrolary could
be the "killer module". And it is my hope that the usage of rebol by
large-scale projects will increase both the user base and the code
base.
So, in short, I am more interested in "killer modules" than "killer
apps" and more interested in "needs-based" engineering than "strict"
engineering. I hope to see rebol's code base and user base grow over
time, so that I can use it more.
And rebol should be distributed with the "killer modules" included;
tested and verified by the user base.
I hope that you will continue to hear from rebol programmers
what they have been up to and what their opinions are.
Welcome.
--
Tim Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.alaska-internet-solutions.com
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