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Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

red-lang.org

41–50 of 141 posts

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#41
post #36

Isn't Red a great language to teach children? I just tried Red and it's amazingly simple to get started.

Although Logo is said to be an ancestor to Rebol (which in turn is an ancestor to Red), there's more it than an apparent "childish" simplicity on the surface. http://www.rebol.com/article/0103.html Language that hits the sweet spot between Forth and Lisp might be a good fit for some kids, but its scope is way outside of mere scripting and toying, and demands a respective approach - something that only grown-up engine…

> its scope is way outside of mere scripting and toying, and demands a respective approach

Maybe I misunderstand where you are coming from, but to me this appears similar to saying that using acrylic paint demands a respective approach because the great paintings of the last century were made with it.

To which I would say: no, not really. Acrylic paint only demands a respective approach in the sense that it may be toxic and you don't want kids to finger paint or risk swallowing it. But people can paint whatever they want with it.

Similarly, Red demands a respective approach because it's powerful enough to shoot yourself in the foot (oops, some kid deleted half of the files on the SSD by accident). Maybe that is what you meant with "scope", but it's not what I made out of it upon first reading.

Besides, the solution for that is simple enough: make a child-safe dialect.

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#42
post #6
post #2

A language with a GC does not seem appropriate for a "full-stack" language with which one would write operating systems, drivers, or game engines. I don't know why any language without full manual memory management would ever posit itself as being appropriate for these domains. It's naive at best.

I write kernel drivers and firmware code mainly in C and a little bit of assembler. I agree with you pretty much. That said, it's healthy to have some people exploring alternative paths. Maybe some of that exploration will be fruitful, way or another. Especially firmware development is somewhat ossified to C. C is universally supported and a lot of people in this trade don't even see need for a change, despite vastly…

>That said, it's healthy to have some people exploring alternative paths. Maybe some of that exploration will be fruitful, way or another.

Exactly. Perhaps it is not appropriate to write production ready drivers and operating systems that people will use today in a GC language; but in the future that could change and change will only happen if people take the time to experiment.

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#43
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although Logo is said to be an ancestor to Rebol (which in turn is an ancestor to Red), there's more it than an apparent "childish" simplicity on the surface. http://www.rebol.com/article/0103.html Language that hits the sweet spot between Forth and Lisp might be a good fit for some kids, but its scope is way outside of mere scripting and toying, and demands a respective approach - something that only grown-up engine…

> its scope is way outside of mere scripting and toying, and demands a respective approach Maybe I misunderstand where you are coming from, but to me this appears similar to saying that using acrylic paint demands a respective approach because the great paintings of the last century were made with it. To which I would say: no, not really. Acrylic paint only demands a respective approach in the sense that it may be to…

My point is that Rebol and Red are extremely good chameleons - they hide all their power behind the approachable facade, and make a false impression of "oh it's just X, nothing serious". I saw a fair share of people who, based on that first impression, dismiss Red as a quirky alternative to Python, or a GUI-building kit, or a pretentious academical toy, you name it.

But that doesn't mean that these languages child-safe by default, and indeed, foot-shooting starts as soon as you begin to harness that power - that's where the real fun is, which IMO kids can't appreciate fully. As you said, it's anything but a finger paint.

But if it clicks in kid's brain from the get-go and grows over him, then the world is ought to see some great paintings ;)

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#44
post #29

After seeing the first demos from Rebol View many years ago, nothing comes close yet.

At least once a year I'm tempted to play with Rebol. Its concepts scratches many itches of mine.

Do you have any suggestion on what I could write to showcase idiomatic Rebol? Networking? GUI? Command-line?

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#45
post #44
post #29

After seeing the first demos from Rebol View many years ago, nothing comes close yet.

At least once a year I'm tempted to play with Rebol. Its concepts scratches many itches of mine. Do you have any suggestion on what I could write to showcase idiomatic Rebol? Networking? GUI? Command-line?

Take a look at these, source code is easy to follow

http://www.rebol.com/pre-view.html

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#46
I still don't know what to make of this language. If anything, it sounds too easy, making me think "what's the catch?" Is this a small programming cult or is it Czech wizardry obscured by a language barrier? Are there no highly visible Red projects because of shortcomings in the language and its community, or because the language is so potent, its users so empowered, that big libraries aren't necessary?

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#47

The Red Language has always described itself as functional imperative . I used to point out to people that functional programming can be imperative and nobody (I do mean nobody I spoke to about this) would believe me on this. Then I would point out to people Red Language as an example and they would scratch their heads in confusion. Even the Wikipedia article gets this wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_…

What's the different between that and plain old structured programming subroutines?

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#48

I still don't know what to make of this language. If anything, it sounds too easy, making me think "what's the catch?" Is this a small programming cult or is it Czech wizardry obscured by a language barrier? Are there no highly visible Red projects because of shortcomings in the language and its community, or because the language is so potent, its users so empowered, that big libraries aren't necessary?

I do not appreciate your remark about our community and Czech-speaking part of it. This is rude and uncalled for.

Regardless of gender and nationality of community members, and despite the fact that Red is an alpha software, the following projects were created, which may qualify as highly visible:

* neural networks [1]

* computer vision framework [2]

* dataflow engine [3]

* ports of (cross-platform) GUI widgets [4]

* projectional editor [5]

* drawing apps [6]

* operating systems (an in-house project as of now, so no link)

If you don't know what to make out of Red, I'd suggest to grab the latest build [7] with a list of learning resources [8] and do a bit of research. Official About page [9] also gives a good list of main features.

Big libraries indeed aren't necessary, because most of batteries are included in a 1MB executable, and common needs are covered by core library. Full-fledged module system is missing, but is planned for 0.8.0 release. We also have a large Rebol ecosystem, from which various scripts and applications may be ported, if necessary.

[1]: http://redlcv.blogspot.com/2018/11/neural-network-with-red-l...

[2]: https://github.com/ldci/redCV

[3]: https://gitter.im/red/red/gui-branch?at=5c018edb8fa4333e391b...

[4]: https://gitter.im/red/red/gui-branch?at=5c03fdbabe66d8252666...

[5]: https://gitlab.com/rebolek/values

[6]: https://github.com/toomasv/drawing, https://github.com/honix/Redraw

[7]: https://www.red-lang.org/p/download.html

[8]: https://github.com/red/red/wiki/[LINKS]-Learning-resources

[9]: https://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#49
post #48

I still don't know what to make of this language. If anything, it sounds too easy, making me think "what's the catch?" Is this a small programming cult or is it Czech wizardry obscured by a language barrier? Are there no highly visible Red projects because of shortcomings in the language and its community, or because the language is so potent, its users so empowered, that big libraries aren't necessary?

I do not appreciate your remark about our community and Czech-speaking part of it. This is rude and uncalled for. Regardless of gender and nationality of community members, and despite the fact that Red is an alpha software, the following projects were created, which may qualify as highly visible: * neural networks [1] * computer vision framework [2] * dataflow engine [3] * ports of (cross-platform) GUI widgets [4] *…

>I do not appreciate your remark about our community and Czech-speaking part of it. This is rude and uncalled for.

There was no offense being given. In my experience there isn't sympathy for crying wolf here, and doing so only serves to harm whatever else you have to say.

Re: Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

#50
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not appreciate your remark about our community and Czech-speaking part of it. This is rude and uncalled for. Regardless of gender and nationality of community members, and despite the fact that Red is an alpha software, the following projects were created, which may qualify as highly visible: * neural networks [1] * computer vision framework [2] * dataflow engine [3] * ports of (cross-platform) GUI widgets [4] *…

>I do not appreciate your remark about our community and Czech-speaking part of it. This is rude and uncalled for. There was no offense being given. In my experience there isn't sympathy for crying wolf here, and doing so only serves to harm whatever else you have to say.

OP can always correct me if I'm wrong in my defensiveness.
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