Just want to throw my hat in the ring in support of what you have said here. I just can't see the logic to restricting a great tool like REBOL on the grounds that it is intended only for some narrow(er) spectrum of tasks. It's a language, right? Well, then, it has its strengths and weaknesses like any other language. But why cut off a gigantic avenue of potential applications (including MANY embedded system app's) by not supporting as much hardware as possible at a fundamental level? Sure there are practical problems regarding different platforms, but problems are there to be solved. In a somewhat related thread it was implied that low-level activities like PING should not be supported because they may present "a security risk" on certain (Unix) platforms. Well, then just have a start up parameter (like -s and -q) that enable/disable this capability for those who (for whatever reason) don't or can't use/permit it. After all, isn't that precisely what the SU capability in Unix accomplishes? Capability, but with sufficient safeguard against its misuse. Let the rest of us who'd like to do some a wider spectrum of things with REBOL have the enhanced capabilities in this very powerful and useful language! I think there are approaches and solutions that can keep everyone happy w/o overly restricting the applicability of REBOL. Russ ------------------------------------- At 10:28 AM 10/3/99 +0000, you wrote: >I disagree. There is more to communication than the internet. I think that >REBOL really needs to support serial and parallel ports directly. As for >developing these types of apps in other languages, Java is ugly, slow and >awkward no matter what you're doing with it, VB is okay if you don't care >about maintainable code or the size of your programs (bloat-ware!). C is >ok, but I've written a BBS in C before, and I'd much rather be using REBOL, >it's much better suited to that type of project than a low level language >like C (not that I don't like C, it's actually my favorite language other >than rebol). > > Cal Dixon ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > >> > REBOL's a messaging language. TCP/IP is pretty important to that >> > end. It sounds like you're more interested developing stand alone >> > apps for a stand alone box. There are plenty of platform specific >> > APIs you can use for those needs. >> > >> > -jeff >> >>Here, Here! Exactly what I was thinking. Java (or even C or VB) would be >>much easier to develop those types of apps. As it says on the Rebol web >>page, it is an Internet Communications Language for distributed computing. >>I for one would like it to stay focused on Internet Communications (email >>and web/cgi) etc.
