Future of REBOL?

[njuneardave]

So, I am doing a research paper on the REBOL language included with various scripting examples, and I was wondering from the community itself what is the future outlook for REBOL?  And why/why not will it establish itself as a significant language?  Thanks for the input....any links to give me more info would be greatly appreciated too.

[CarlRead]

I wouldn't want to speculate on its future, but reading back through Carl's Blog (here: http://www.rebol.net/blog/carl.html ) with respect to "Services" might give you some idea of its direction.  The rebol.net homepage offers quite a few useful links too.
 

[Guest]

My opinion, FWIW: REBOL is an outsider language. Like certain art-forms or free-jazz, the lack of mainstream popularity is not a shock. REBOL's design is the imprint of its maker. It is an amazing work of functional, minimalist art-- with a veneer of compromise to keep the door ajar to some level of acceptance.

REBOL packs a lot of innovative features in an accessible package, but it's quite unconventional. It feels more suitable for "programming in the small"-- IOW, for performing tactical programming tasks, rather than creating industrial-strength programs. From what I've read, it also doesn't excel in traditional language benchmarks (e.g., http://dada.perl.it/shootout/).

The Tiobe folks will tell you that REBOL needs to be 7 times more popular (note: measured by web searches) to qualify as a top 50 programming language. It's a long way to the top.

I suppose when you boil it all down, REBOL is a proprietary language designed for a special subset of programming needs. This is both a good thing and a hindrence.  If you want more info on why exotic, powerful languages often don't succeed in the marketplace, the Dylan language may be a better documented example to start with.

[Guest_Leke]

I'm sure I read a few months back that REBOL was taken off the Tiobe candidate list altogether.

Anyone remember?