REBOL 3 status
29-May-2008 20:07 Filed in: REBOL 3
It's been too long since there was a status of R3, so
I'll bring you some tidbits.
What's going on right now:
There's a big discussion going on about VID3's design and how the current style design model is a little too complex for style designers to make new styles for. The dialect itself feels OK and the capabilities of VID3 are not likely to be reduced. Currently, creating a style is a process in change, so I don't get to do work on skinning at this time. It makes no sense for me to do that, if I have to throw it out again later, or if Gabriele Santilli, the designer and creator of VID3, will have to waste time rewriting my style designs.
There's also another big discussion about what VID3 is supposed to be usable for and there has been some confusion about whether it will be usable for heavy application building or whether it's more for media applications like MythTV. I suggest you look at this blog post here, for more clarifying answers about that.
Unicode
This part takes quite a bit to get used to, since you can no longer assume what format the content of a string represented as a binary can be. Many functions are changed because of the inclusion of unicode. This makes a few things a little more elaborate to code (READ is always binary, for example), but other things are much simpler as a result of moving certain natives to working only on binary!. You can for example now directly READ a website and WRITE it to disk without any refinements or additional input.
Builds
The latest executable we have internally is called View12.exe. It's called that way, because it's the 12th release of the unicode version of REBOL 3. The first 7 contained no graphics engine, but with release 8 it came back in, only without LAYOUT. We discovered then a serious bug in the graphics system that will cause R3 to crash, just by dragging a scrollbar in a test user interface. What that bug is, is still being determined.
Meanwhile, some additional tools for debugging and development have been added: DT executes a code block and tells you how long it took. DP executes a code block and tells you some memory statistics on what happened in that code block. Example:
HTTP
Our new HTTP scheme is made to completely adhere to HTTP/1.1 and it was designed by Gabriele Santilli. On a particular note, Carl Sassenrath commented on how nice the code looked, and indeed it's a very beautiful piece of code, right for the textbooks. There is a single bug in it, however, but don't tell anyone that. It will be fixed.
Bugs
The number of bug reports is steadily climbing. We are today at 471 reports. The new test vector system is not yet online due to other priorities. A thing worth mentioning is that the console window now will quit in the Windows version, when clicking on the close button, without showing the kill window. (It also revealed some horrors in how Windows handles the console window...). As a small side effect, QUIT has ceased to work.
REBOL/Services
It's strongly desired to move DevBase to R3 and for this process, it's necessary to port REBOL/Services to R3. Since R3 has a different port model and has unicode support, this takes a little time to do. Also just today, some bugs in the ENCLOAK function, which is basic to the functionality of encryption in REBOL/Services have been found.
What will go on in the near future:
The HTTP scheme will be included and when the VID3 discussion is complete, Gabriele can continue working on the style system, and work can resume work on the test vector system. When VID3 has seen significant advance in the style design area, I will begin working on more styles for it.
The target platform for these tests right now is Windows only. It's easier to do that, because the Linux and OSX versions are missing rudimentary console cursor controls, which make them a serious pain to use. Meanwhile anyone testing on Linux or OSX are encouraged to do so in VMWare, Wine or CrossOver.
Sorry, no screenshots in this round.
Well, I guess I can give you one:
What's going on right now:
There's a big discussion going on about VID3's design and how the current style design model is a little too complex for style designers to make new styles for. The dialect itself feels OK and the capabilities of VID3 are not likely to be reduced. Currently, creating a style is a process in change, so I don't get to do work on skinning at this time. It makes no sense for me to do that, if I have to throw it out again later, or if Gabriele Santilli, the designer and creator of VID3, will have to waste time rewriting my style designs.
There's also another big discussion about what VID3 is supposed to be usable for and there has been some confusion about whether it will be usable for heavy application building or whether it's more for media applications like MythTV. I suggest you look at this blog post here, for more clarifying answers about that.
Unicode
This part takes quite a bit to get used to, since you can no longer assume what format the content of a string represented as a binary can be. Many functions are changed because of the inclusion of unicode. This makes a few things a little more elaborate to code (READ is always binary, for example), but other things are much simpler as a result of moving certain natives to working only on binary!. You can for example now directly READ a website and WRITE it to disk without any refinements or additional input.
Builds
The latest executable we have internally is called View12.exe. It's called that way, because it's the 12th release of the unicode version of REBOL 3. The first 7 contained no graphics engine, but with release 8 it came back in, only without LAYOUT. We discovered then a serious bug in the graphics system that will cause R3 to crash, just by dragging a scrollbar in a test user interface. What that bug is, is still being determined.
Meanwhile, some additional tools for debugging and development have been added: DT executes a code block and tells you how long it took. DP executes a code block and tells you some memory statistics on what happened in that code block. Example:
>> dp [a: 2]
== make object! [
timer: 113
evals: 10
eval-natives: 3
eval-functions: 1
series-made: 1
series-freed: 0
series-expanded: 0
series-bytes: 432
series-recycled: 0
made-blocks: 1
made-objects: 0
recycles: 0
]
HTTP
Our new HTTP scheme is made to completely adhere to HTTP/1.1 and it was designed by Gabriele Santilli. On a particular note, Carl Sassenrath commented on how nice the code looked, and indeed it's a very beautiful piece of code, right for the textbooks. There is a single bug in it, however, but don't tell anyone that. It will be fixed.
Bugs
The number of bug reports is steadily climbing. We are today at 471 reports. The new test vector system is not yet online due to other priorities. A thing worth mentioning is that the console window now will quit in the Windows version, when clicking on the close button, without showing the kill window. (It also revealed some horrors in how Windows handles the console window...). As a small side effect, QUIT has ceased to work.
REBOL/Services
It's strongly desired to move DevBase to R3 and for this process, it's necessary to port REBOL/Services to R3. Since R3 has a different port model and has unicode support, this takes a little time to do. Also just today, some bugs in the ENCLOAK function, which is basic to the functionality of encryption in REBOL/Services have been found.
What will go on in the near future:
The HTTP scheme will be included and when the VID3 discussion is complete, Gabriele can continue working on the style system, and work can resume work on the test vector system. When VID3 has seen significant advance in the style design area, I will begin working on more styles for it.
The target platform for these tests right now is Windows only. It's easier to do that, because the Linux and OSX versions are missing rudimentary console cursor controls, which make them a serious pain to use. Meanwhile anyone testing on Linux or OSX are encouraged to do so in VMWare, Wine or CrossOver.
Sorry, no screenshots in this round.
Well, I guess I can give you one:
Enjoy!
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