REBOL Release 3 alpha 2.100.29 way cool

[btiffin]

Ok, this is early but not so much; The new REBOL system is becoming very very cool.

The new banner has hints for console commands such as

• News
  
• Chat
  
• Docs
  
• Bugs
  
• Help

So when start REBOL, typing

code:

Chat

opens up RebDev (codename) a very fast, lean, threaded, tagged, command driven communication system. Docs opens a browser view to the (someday replaced) mediawiki DocBase wiki. Bugs opens a view to the REBOL application CureCode running on a REBOL coded webserver (Cheyenne) for the bug tracking system. Help exposes the reflective core of REBOL itself and without arguments gives a general help screen (very similar to what we have in current production REBOL) but extended.

After an error such as this sequence

code:

>> foo ** Script error: foo has no value ** Note: use WHY? for more about this error >> why? Opening web browser...

leads to a browser view of detailed error messages. One of my jobs will be to assist in entering and fleshing out these entries with examples and as much information as possible. Currently this leads to the DocBase mediawiki but that will change.

Another feature of R3 is DevBase, the open source face of REBOL, written in REBOL and open to community code contributions. This will be linked through (tests in progress) RebDev and directly from the REBOL console so that the environment itself is attached to the REBOL community at large.

And Unicode too.

If you ever hear about Web 3.0 this is getting very very close. REBOL can evaluate scripts (current REBOL production releases already do this) with simple >> DO http://mysite/myscript.r but the new features allow access to the entire World Wide Reb (a pet working name) of sites, scripts and resources. One of the alpha team members is fairly well along in a browser based on the new R3 GUI (the GUI layer itself is some 30K of code right now) so we'll be web'ing our way from the console to the www and back again without leaving the platform.

Anyway ... I'm totally excited and the release is just around the corner (ok, wishful thinking ... but it's close to the end-game after a 36 month development cycle).

http://rebol.com for REBOL 2.7.6, but as cool as R2 is, R3 is leaps and bounds cooler. The refinements added to the "language" that is more than a language are outstanding. Learn some REBOL release 2 and get ready for the soon to be unleashed third edition.

If you don't REBOL, you're missing out. Marshall McLuhan, meet Carl Sassenrath. The medium truly is the message and that message carries wisdom. And a lot of very high tech fun. The console is the forum is the browser is the development platform is ... my new home.

Oh, and did I mention that all this can be embedded into your applications?

Cheers