Red Programming Language: Plans for 2019

I'm sure you have your reasons for doing so, and I'm glad that it's working well for you.

I'm not having a go at you for making Red run on Rebol. But I am having a go at you for having a go at Clojure for running on the JVM, while claiming that Red is built "from the ground up".

All this posting about how Red is better than all other languages, and that people, who use those other ones, are stuck in their ways or not smart enough, and defensively lashing out at people who point out limitations of Red, it just comes across as megalomaniacal. Being implemented in Rebol2 apparently also "has a cost" for Red, namely that Rebol2 is abandoned, and that there's no 64-bit support, and that a otherwise free/libre programming language has non-free dependencies, and you might be in a pickle if you want to include newer versions of libraries that are presumably statically compiled into the Rebol2 binary blob, especially your SSL library... but apparently, from what I read about Rebol[0], it's only the "pro" version of Rebol that has SSL-support, so what about Red?

Do you understand those issues? It's too hand-wavy to say that I'm not looking at Red "on its own terms", especially because those terms include being a "good fit for any task!"[1]

[0]: https://www.freax.be/2017/03/19/rebol/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(programming_language)

* Language and runtime library are at version 0.6.4, so still alpha stage.

* Lack of support for mobile and web platforms (Android support is coming this year).

* Documentation is largely incomplete, still relying on Rebol docs for core parts.

* Community is very active, but still tiny, it needs to grow much bigger.

Github's code breakdown by languages for red/red repo:

* Red 83.8%

* Rebol 15.7%

* C 0.2%

* Visual Basic 0.2%

* Java 0.1%

* Shell 0.0%

Only the compiler is implemented in Rebol, the rest, including the interpreter, the consoles, the GUI system and the whole runtime library are implemented in a mix of Red and Red/System. From top of my head, it's about ~25k LOC for the compiler/toolchain (in Rebol) and ~130k LOC for the REPL and runtime library (in Red and Red/System).

The use of Rebol is only for boostrapping the language. The whole Rebol code part will be dropped after 1.0, and the toolchain rewritten in pure Red.

As for "defensive lashing" - you should make a distinction between informed, well-posed critique and arrogant, unbacked ranting. Everyone accepts the former and does not tolerate the latter - the team is no exception. And, again - either provide an evidence for what you say or back off your claims. Calling project megalomaniacal for fighting FUD is completely off base, and every criticism raised in this thread was handled politely. Heck, I can pull out any blog post from one of Clojure community members and start claiming that it represents opinions of Hickey. Would that be OK? I guess not.

Even if there is a cost in using Rebol2 as bootsrapping language, it will be gone with 1.0 release. And right now Rebol source code takes roughly a quarter of whole codebase (compilers and linkers for Red and Red/System) - the rest is pure Red and its dialects. So your whole paragraph is completely irrelevant and misleading: lack of 64-bit support has nothing to do with Rebol2, bold "non-free dependency" claim does not have any weight to it (since when bootstrapping language is a dependency?) and "SSL library" passage tells me that you don't have an idea of what you're talking about.

And use official resources (Red and Rebol websites) as references, would you? Wiki page is an extremely weak testimony to whatever you have to say.

No project is ideal, but Red's terms are completely different from what you try to impose here. I do not say that we don't have holes in the housing - we do, and we have all what is necessary to close them.

1. It was your claim that it was "just formatting changes". Which they are not

2. This doesn't explain why 99% of bug fixes contain no tests

> If it's provably false, then take your time to actually prove it before calling someone a liar.

Testing and comments in code are not high standards. They are basic development hygiene.

> Absolute nonsense. Read the changelogs, roadmap and Github releases before making such claims.

I've read them, that's why I'm making such claims.

Releases: https://github.com/red/red/releases

Barely above one patch increment a year for the past three years:

- Nov 2018, 0.6.4

- Jul 2018, 0.6.3

- Mar 2017, 0.6.2

- Jun 2016, 0.6.1

- Mar 2016, 0.6.0

Minor versions incremented from 0.1. to 0.6 in 7 years, and increments have slowed down.

So, we are expected to believe that 7 years from now when it maybe reaches 1.0.0 the devs will suddenly go through all the code, add comments and tests, and start caring?

> no one will adhere to your idealistic, unencumbered by reality version of how things should be done.

Me: when you fix issues, you should really add tests to those fixes. At least strive to have more than ~0 tests in your fixes. Add documentation to critical parts of your system.

You: "your idealistic, unencumbered by reality version"

:-\

That's why I'm extremely sceptical. What is considered the norm pretty much everywhere is viewed as "unencumbered by reality" in Red world.

> Feedback filtered out of your messages is appreciated, and taken into account.

I very much doubt it was taken into account.