As a new language junkie, I'm beta testing Curl right now, and I've just
written my first few rebol scripts. Here's some quick thoughts from a
newbie.
Where they're the same:
Curl and Rebol both provide a low barrier to entry, meaning simple things
are simple to do in a way not true of most languages. Simple in Curl is
more about moving from simple content presentation (the TeX ancestry) up to
full-fledged system programming in an easy way. I think Rebol has achieved
similar goals with the View dialect. Both platforms bridge scripting and OO
languages - allowing you to mix procedural and oo semantics, with Curl more
on the OO side and Rebol more on the scripting side. Curl does have more
code-fattening language features that James alluded to, so Rebol still
remains the champion of concise coding. Both allow you to implement a type
of sandbox for untrusted applets and are working fiercely on rounding out
their script-distribution framework.
Where they differ:
Rebol is very lightweight compared to Curl (~200K vs. ~2M plug-in), and
already available on many many platforms (although is View really
released?). Curl is just getting ready to launch their browser plugin for
Windows. They'll follow with Mac and then Linux, and will provide
scripting and application (exe) capability (like Command). They've
announced plans to go onto mobile devices. Curl has a built-in 2-d and 3-d
graphics library. View has a lot of 2D stuff that's easily accessible, but
I don't think it's as powerful as Curl's. Curl includes an IDE with a
debugger and object inspector that is very very cool, but it also has an
emacs mode.
I think the world (okay - at least me) needs a way to distribute
applications on many different platforms that does more on the client than
HTML+JavaScript or (shudder) DHTML. I'm anti-Java for this purpose,
because I just plain don't like being forced to do OO. With Java about to
be nuked in browsers as a default (i.e. IE6), I think there's an opening
for competing solutions. I hope that one of the aforementioned companies
can fill this void (please, no more Flash!).
John Sequeira
http://www.pobox.com/~johnseq
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
> Christian Langreiter
> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 1:50 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [REBOL] Curl
>
>
> Curl seems to be quite similar in scope and direction to REBOL:
>
> http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/curl/wwwpaper.html
> http://www.curl.com
>
> They just got $52m in funding.
>
> Any opinions?
>
> Best regards,
> Chris
>
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