REBOL not popular

[carloslorenz]

I have read lots of answers in the internet to an old and intriguing question: why REBOL, a so cool and smart language, have a so poor popularity among programmers when compared to Java, Python, etc?
Can you tell us what do you think about that?

[Carl]

Yes, good question, and I am happy to answer it.

REBOL is different.   Many people approach it like they do other languages, and that's a mistake.  If you want to use a standard coding method, I encourage people to use Java.  If you want to take a unique and more powerful approach, use REBOL.

I think there have been a few issues with REBOL too: the error messages can be confusing to beginners, there is no IDE, we need a good GUI builder, parts of REBOL are not documented, the best book on REBOL is written in French only, hooking REBOL to external interfaces (e.g. other programs or libs) is not that easy, certain bugs did not get fixed, people fear what would happen if RT vanished, etc.

I think these are all fixable, and that is our goal with REBOL 3.0 (including that last one).

People need a good reason to use REBOL.  So far, REBOL is for very special, inventive and creative people. These are smart people who understand why REBOL is different, and how it empowers them. But, we need to reach out to a much larger group. And that's exactly the plan for the future.

[Graham]

Basically ( that's a pun  -_- ) all non-Algol derived languages have not been popular since computer languages were devised.

It will take a great deal to change that.

[arphaxat]

1. i am not too popular as well, should i hate myself and stop breathing and evolving therefore?

2. i have never been a programmer (one of the obvious exceptions being amiga basic - which was only derived from MS basic then...)

3. dont' laugh at me now, graham, , why not laugh at yourself...you know...without irony we never would have been, now, would we?

4. question is: will there ever be a german introduction manual to REBOL? @carl?

5. if rebol is so very unpopular, why should one like me, who knows nearly nothing, ever join this forum?

6. i like to dream of an OS that is small, fast, handsome and clean.
even if i'm a ****

7. pardon me, if my english tongue should sound somewhat barbarian styled to your 'umble ears

P.S.: Ich hoffe, der viele Schnee hat nicht deine Besitztümer vernichtet Carl?

Liebe Grüße aus Bayern

Mach weiter so

[henrikmk]

REBOL suffers also from a "nice toy" effect, which seems to be hard to get rid of, even after all these years. This stems much from that Rebol/View applications to casual users may not seem particularly impressive.

A lot of the great features like dialects might be hard to understand for beginners or coders who are used to other kinds of languages and thus never really notice them.

People are not really persuaded by REBOL until they've tried a bit of coding in it and realize that it's much easier to get things done with than they initially thought.

With help from an experienced coder, it can be easy enough to get people's attention. It works best if they have a real life problem to fix, not just a hypothetical one.

I've turned a couple of doubters into firm believers on a dime, by helping them complete a real life task 10 times faster than they thought they would, dumbfoundedly asking: "Is that it? Are we already done?"

This is one of the really fun parts of being a REBOL developer, but it only works on one person at a time. :-)

[popper]

Yes, good question, and I am happy to answer it.

REBOL is different.   Many people approach it like they do other languages, and that's a mistake.  If you want to use a standard coding method, I encourage people to use Java.  If you want to take a unique and more powerful approach, use REBOL.

I think there have been a few issues with REBOL too: the error messages can be confusing to beginners, there is no IDE, we need a good GUI builder, parts of REBOL are not documented, the best book on REBOL is written in French only, hooking REBOL to external interfaces (e.g. other programs or libs) is not that easy, certain bugs did not get fixed, people fear what would happen if RT vanished, etc.

I think these are all fixable, and that is our goal with REBOL 3.0 (including that last one).

People need a good reason to use REBOL.  So far, REBOL is for very special, inventive and creative people. These are smart people who understand why REBOL is different, and how it empowers them. But, we need to reach out to a much larger group. And that's exactly the plan for the future.

its me again, banging on about GUI's and apps for the common guy  -_-

it doesnt need to be you carl that does it personally, but its a big failing that virtually no GUIs exist for your average
person, that i can point to and get their interest, sorry to keep banging on about this but i'v tryed to make the time to grasp the basics and write SOMETHING indeed anything that might grab the attention of these people but alas so far i cant.

everyone assumes that what i ask is easy and indeed it may be for these so called 'inventive and creative people' you refer to above, but it seems im not in that group, and thats fine, as i understand my limitations, but the fact remained, i do understand the concepts behind rebol/view and even can follow the easy and advanced scripts to a point, but when it cames to actually cutting and pasting these working sections never mind write from scratch using these a tutorial just boggles my mind LOL.

i do understand that a basic GUI for the average guy ,means a totally different thing to these 'inventive and creative people' than what i refer to, and what i ask seems so boring to these great people so it never appears to be written.

in the past , iv asked for a fully working /view script to interact with VLC remotely with a nice fancy example of the GUI to get these ordinary peoples interest.

it could even have 2 parts , one for the server side to extend the basic VLC server options, and a client side to take full advantage of the extension and show them what can be done with rebol as the controller.

a simple logicly layed out fully working example of the GUI for any of the video encoders you like, x264/mencoder/etc.

NOW, heres the thing, if these two scripts had been written by now, then i could have asked that these two scripts
to be used as the basis for the latest buzz around DVB-T/DVB-S and the UK BBC HD AVC/H.264 trials going on right now, and the expectation that people are asking for , that being that they want to watch the world cup in HD AVC
useing any DVB-T and DVB-S BDA driver USB or PCi card and a copy of coreAVC (seeing as the open decoders are still lacking in efficency (perhaps the coreAVC guys and you can start a developers masterclass in good fast coding LOL)).

the main buzz:
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=348897&page=43&pp=25

some of these people are using the java coded WebScheduler that uses html as iits core and i have found and pointed these people to JTVLAN a webschedular add-on also written in java.

http://jtvlan.netsons.org/howto.php
http://www.digtv.no-ip.com/webscheduler/

now i dont want to overload the post with lots of facts of how this might be a good thing for rebol to exploit, so ill just say iv pointed the jtvlan dev to the fact that rebol exists, and he says it looks interesting, but i dont expect him to be converted to it, as i cant simply supply him with fully working scripts and extra gui's to convince him.

it was/is my hope that these 'inventive and creative people' and indeed anyone that can script rebol, would take up the challenge and make/re-code a rebol version of the jtvlan app, and perhaps even strip the webschedular code down to its component parts, recode the DVB controlling dll even, if thats possible ? and turn out a fully working (but instructive step by step, if you like) rebol app with fancy looking/attention grabbing  GUI that can stream the raw .ts DVB to any no. of multicast cross platform machines, all from a single client/server rebol  /core /view script.

if not that advanced then just interface to any part of the above chain, that being the dll, the VLC in server mode, in client mode, and indeed html controlling any part of that including jtvlan's client or server.

the options are many and any single rebol script (core or/and/view)that helps these people use their DVB-T/S/C  to
watch and stream the world cup in eather SD.ts or HD.ts has got to be a good thing for letting people know it exists and perhaps use it as their core framework in the future.

thats it, i cant code it, but i see this as a viable project for any scriptor able to add their thoughts to advancing rebol for the masses, will it happen, i hope so , but the past advocating doesnt look like its getting anywere so im ready to give up.......................

ps as for a good good GUI builder, iv always thought that a simple basic Dpaint style GUI that you can just drag out your basic GUI layout and have the app write out the needed rebol/view script is all thats needed to start most people off.

drag out a button, right click it, add your 'http://localhost/webscheduler/do-play' or whatever the connand is, and have the written app just do that thing when it clicked.

i also want to do this (im told is simple thing, but i cant do it) , open a shell/cli and type requestchoice.r "test" "1" "2" "3" "4" and have that click placed back in the cli or script so i can use my friends old amiga scripts converted into rebol. the mailing list people,as good as they are, gave some advice, but i cant make it work and needed a filly working script based on my amiga script i posted there so i could follow it and perhaps in time convert the old amiga scripts to rebol, i may one day 'get it' and ill be the first to write up a step by step help for other people in my possiton, but not yet..

[popper]

well, theres a suprise, jtvlan just PM'ed me and said this
"hi
i just want to say how much i appreciate you interest in jtvlan. i have been thinking about possible ports of JTVLAN in rebol, it is a very interesting language. main problem is that i have not so much time to follow that thing, to learn a completely new language. but i consider it very interesting.

my hope is that some skilled people in rebol (as well as in some other language) will exploit my attempt to define a server API to develope alternative clients using that API. or, even more interesting, will build an alternative server (possibly not based on WS) exposing the same API. Alse, from the rebol point of view, it would be better if such an alternative client would be built by an experienced developer rather than by a novice as i would be 

as i said i have not time to enter a completely new language, but i'll give all the support needed to everyone willing to develop over the API.

bye, Iacopo"

so the doors open, will anyone here walk through it ?.

[popper]

arr well so much for that idea  :angry:

[RebolBert]

I hesitate less and less to use Rebol rather than NewLisp (and even Scheme or Lisp) despite (or thanks to ?) the fact I was (and I'm still) a Logo user.

And what is more, Rebol has a real success in the french speaking lands, which is, maybe selfishly, convenient for me.
-_-

REBOL-ution often meets resistance of "Tradition" (and of accepted ideas). Rebol won't avoid it happening later on, when it'll be mature and wise, and so on.
:rolleyes:

Rebol is probably a bit too "democratic" ... It is like a threat for the computer-science intelligentsia, like Logo, at one's time, which was discredited as a language for kids (Personally I see no harm in this !) . 
Let us be childlike !
^_^

Bertrand

[Sailormoontw]

I think the tough part to persuade people to use REBOL is,
that REBOL you have to pay to get the complete language.

REBOL/Core and REBOL/View is nice, and kernel is small,
and the graphics look nice. But whenever you want to make something advanced,
you need REBOL/SDK or REBOL/Command. For example, if you want to build the native code, I don't think you can make it with REBOL/Core or REBOL/View.

I have tried many languages, C, C++, D, Java, C#, Ada, Perl, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, Common Lisp, Haskell, though I am not familiar with them all. Most of them you can find the compiler free.

[RebolBert]

But whenever you want to make something advanced,
you need REBOL/SDK or REBOL/Command. For example, if you want to build the native code, I don't think you can make it with REBOL/Core or REBOL/View.

Yes, but whenever you want to make something advanced you are ready to pay the price and may be you'll be payed back. I don't think the problem is there.

With REBOL/Core and REBOL/View you can make a lot of simple things ... too easily. It seems childish (like LOGO) and it looks not serious enough. Nevertheless it works !

I've tried a few languages : Python, Common Lisp, Tcl-Tk ... I currently use Logo and Scheme (though I'm not familiar with the latter) and now I'm discovering REBOL. I've already done more things in a short while with REBOL than with those other languages (except Logo).

REBOL is  easy  and yet subtle, no enigmatic or esoteric. It's really a language for communication, within the reach of everybody. So is my opinion  -_-

[Sailormoontw]

But whenever you want to make something advanced,
you need REBOL/SDK or REBOL/Command. For example, if you want to build the native code, I don't think you can make it with REBOL/Core or REBOL/View.

Yes, but whenever you want to make something advanced you are ready to pay the price and may be you'll be payed back. I don't think the problem is there.

With REBOL/Core and REBOL/View you can make a lot of simple things ... too easily. It seems childish (like LOGO) and it looks not serious enough. Nevertheless it works !

I've tried a few languages : Python, Common Lisp, Tcl-Tk ... I currently use Logo and Scheme (though I'm not familiar with the latter) and now I'm discovering REBOL. I've already done more things in a short while with REBOL than with those other languages (except Logo).

REBOL is  easy  and yet subtle, no enigmatic or esoteric. It's really a language for communication, within the reach of everybody. So is my opinion  -_-

REBOL isn't hard to learn. The language itself is a lot like Lisp without brackets in the function part, so the number of arguments of each function is fixed, then compiler would know which to compile. And therefore there is a / optional argument for the functions.

REBOL in my opinion, it still lacks the key feature for people to use, especially the truth the language itself is only partially free is a big disadvantage. Other language, might be in the beginning harder to learn or harder to use, and things would be better once you get familiar with them, at that time you might already build a library of yours which contains most functions you need.

On the other hand, choosing REBOL means easier in the beginning, but it would get harder when you use it more. Not only because the advanced features are costly, but the source is not opened. It's a risk to choose REBOL if you want to write some serious program. Simply because REBOL is a language that you depend on what it offers, it's closed and without the REBOL/SDK, REBOL/Command opened, I cannot tell how good they are, and whether some advanced features REBOL can offer or not.

Hence, REBOL/Core and REBOL/View are considered childish and/or toy, and we don't know about REBOL/Command or REBOL/SDK.

[RebolBert]

On the other hand, choosing REBOL means easier in the beginning, but it would get harder when you use it more. Not only because the advanced features are costly, but the source is not opened.

Yes it's true. As a newbie and non-programmer, I didn't view the thing in that way.

I feel like to add that REBOL, because of its simplicity, may initiate to other languages like Lisp or Scheme. With the latters we can make advanced things after a while, when we are more familiar with them.

With REBOL we can immediately test out and, especially, have fun - what may dissipate a little  :rolleyes:

REBOL (and LOGO too, for a long time) helps me to understand some abstractions of Scheme for instance.

Lisp is still too hard for me ! I'm an old self-taught newbie  -_-

[robertl]

When Rebol will be ported on Dotnet and Mono platform I will use it in professional context: today language alone is useless in professional context, all the libraries are as if not more important.

So I hope that one day you have the Gotcha of realising that's THE number one problem of problem. The mass of people won't learn and use Rebol if it doesn't help them to find a job for example. Java have been learned by many because they know for sure it will be usefull for their career.

[Vitaliy]

There are many programmers who never heard about Rebol.
People just doesn't known about this great language.

There are thousands articles about Visual Basic.
But no one known about rebol.
Rebol Inc. just have not marketing support