Sorry for the delay...
I'm very short on time these days... so busy. Heading out on
Monday to give a presentation of REBOL to National Institute of
Standards and Technologies. An honor to have been invited,
along with the likes of Bill Joy and his Jini project.
But, I wanted to make an important comment on /View: It has been
part of the REBOL plan from the beginning. This isn't a new
idea, or something that we decided to do on a whim. It's been
on the list from the start and was one of the primary objectives
of REBOL. So now it happens. This is an important "card" for
us to play in the current big picture of computing, and we must
play it right now.
With regard to /Command features such as ODBC, API, shell, etc.
Those will still happen. We are committed. Most of these
modules are functionally complete (we use many of them in-house
for bug tracking and building the 37 different versions of
REBOL/Core), and we expect to release them for beta testing
soon. HOWEVER, what product they will become part of may vary.
All I can say right now is that they will be available, and if
you need these functions, sign up for beta. (But not on this list
please, just let [EMAIL PROTECTED] know.)
As you will find out today, REBOL/View takes a unique approach
to how GUIs are created. Many people have contacted me and told
me that they want a particular kind of gui gadget or wizzy
widget to be part of it. That's good, I'm glad that they know
what you want.
But, I think differently. Like the rest of REBOL, and like the
Amiga before it, REBOL provides a general mechanism for building
any kind of GUI. It's built on a graphical compositing engine...
the clay... which you can mold into any kind of GUI you prefer.
This is done with dialects, and we will provide you with the
first GUI dialect, one I call CID, the Consumer Interface
Dialect. It is oriented toward simple, consumer, TV style
interfaces. Over time there will be many more: a desktop
interface dialect, slideshow dialect, various videogame
dialects. This is the power of good design. There is no limit
to the number or style of GUI dialects that you can create.
This is a great way to create GUIs.
But, will there be standards? Isn't that important for GUIs?
You bet. Several standard dialects will be part of the
distribution of REBOL, CID for instance. So if you want to use
a standard, you can rely on it being there. In addition, each
dialect will grow with suggestions and improvements made by you,
which we'll review and add to the standard.
Ok, so now you know more. Sorry, but I don't have time right
now to say more. You'll get REBOL/View beta very soon, and you
can try it out for yourself. Like previous releases, the docs
will be pretty lean, but there are numerous examples, and I
don't think it will take you long to get started. In fact,
I've created a tutorial about CID that is written in CID.
Here's a hello world in CID:
view layout [text "Hello World"]
Tough eh? Want to add a button to quit?
view layout [
text "Hello World"
button "Quit" [quit]
]
Want to add a red button for sending an email:
view layout [
text "Hello World"
button "Quit" [quit]
button "Send" 255.0.0 [send [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Use it!"]
]
Also, one other thing.... We've got /View running on only a few
platforms at this time. More will be added later. Just don't
be to disappointed if you don't see it running on your OS this
week.
Got to run. Much to do. Chat with you later,
-Carl Sassenrath
Busy REBOL Guy
At 1/23/00 05:34 AM +0100, you wrote:
>Great, thanks. So we have two comments from RT folks. Now it's your turn, Carl
>:-)
>
>-pekr-
>
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> Just to reiterate what Dan has said:
>>
>> REBOL is working hard this weekend to get View/Beta out the door. Might be
>> Monday. Some things may seem like they've fallen by the wayside, but they
>> haven't. We'll be following View up with a refresh of Core and then
>> following that up with finishing the Apache product. In between, and just
>> for fun, we will try and get Command/Beta out along with some of those DB
>> modules.
>
>Ha, modules. Modularity is important. Still waiting for yet unanswered
>questions. Why are not /View /Command /Browse etc just modules built upon /Core?
>Or are they? Because if not, I can't imagine RT to suply all that variations one
>could want, e.g. someone would like to have /Browse together with /Command
>capabilities, or /View together with /Command capabilities. What then? Just
>don't tell me we will have to run two REBOL, linking them with some protocol
>;-)
>
>> Before we have too much fun, we will have to finish off the
>> View/Beta product and get a final release out. Of course, engineering
>> doesn't keep all the fun to itself. The product pricing committee gets to
>> join the fray as we discuss how to price and license all these great new
>> products. (Core will remain free, however.) That business sometimes seems
>> more confusing than the NT Registry.
>>
>
>:-) Well, you already got some suggestions out off of the list some few months
>ago :-)
>
>> As you can see, we have a very full plate... We apologize for what seems
>> like a long delay, but we do have a number of great products coming. Hang
>> in there a bit longer.
>>
>> Tom Croswell
>> VP Product Development
>>
>
>Nice to see you participate here, Tom :-)
>
>Thanks once again,
>
>-pekr-
>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>> Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2000 2:56 AM
>> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Subject: [REBOL] Openletter to Rebol HQ. Re:(8)
>>
>> Little late for me to enter this thread, but I'll throw a REBOL employee
>> response into the mix prior to Carl's.
>>
>> I strongly believe Elan's excitement (and others) for View is well-placed.
>> Carl and some of the team were pounding away until the wee early morning
>> hours today getting View working...it really will be ready soon :-)
>> Actually, the need to provide you with a bunch of decent examples to get
>> everyone off on the right foot is our biggest gating factor, but there are
>> already more than 20 and many more to come.
>>
>> As for jb and other's demand for Command and web application needs, they are
>> also valid and not forgotten. We have a number of modules that are quite
>> close, but in addition to final testing and packaging, are held up until we
>> make some strategic decisions and free up some resources...rest assured,
>> everyone's feedback on this list and through direct emails are being
>> considered in our decision-making and we will actively solicit your
>> viewpoints going forward.
>>
>> Hope this helps clarify things a little! dan
>>
>> .At 09:56 AM 1/20/00 -0600, you wrote:
>> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Whether the beta ships this week or next week, let us not lose from
>> >> sight, what it is that we are talking about. We are not talking
>> >> about extending REBOL with a GUI interface!
>> >>
>> >> We are talking about adding REBOL to GUI applications. GUI
>> >> applications become programmable in REBOL! This is GUI applications
>> >> with Internet processing programmable in REBOL! This is Internet
>> >> applications with GUIs programmable in REBOL! Big difference!
>> >>
>> > ...
>> >>
>> >> There are millions and millions of people out there, who are
>> >> comfortable with a mouse and who expect that they can start up an
>> >> application and make choices from menus in order to accomplish
>> >> their tasks. These people will be able to use our scripts.
>> >> This is important!
>> >>
>> >
>> >It's really too bad that experienced users like Elan have become
>> >so jaded that they can't get excited about the future of REBOL...
>> >
>> >;-}
>> >
>> >Seriously, I think Elan's right on target about the importance of
>> >GUI capabilities to the great masses. Those of us that are happy
>> >with a text-based interaction (or who write server scripts, etc.)
>> >are definitely in the minority. As long as we are writing code
>> >just for ourselves to use, or to be hidden in a server somewhere,
>> >text mode is fine. However, if I want to write scripts for non-
>> >technical human users, I want the tools to make it easy for them
>> >to appreciate the beauty of my work! ;-)
>> >
>> >I think there's a significant market for REBOL code which will
>> >only open up when T. C. Mits can drive it with pretty pictures.
>> >
>> >-jn-
>> >
>> >P.S.: The prospect of early availability of REBOL/View only
>> >increases my desire for comprehensive docs. Please, please,
>> >please, please....
>
