Collecting my attempts to improve at tech, art, and life
Posts where I used the Rebol programming language and thought that was interesting. Worth mentioning that the code will probably work in Red with minimal adjustments.
Jan 8, 2008
I just saw Petr Krenzelok’s giddy announcement on the REBOL mailing list that a public alpha of REBOL 3 is available today. I’ve been waiting to see this for a while and can’t even begin to describe how excited I am.
Nov 27, 2007
Mar 9, 2007
I haven’t been on the Rebol3 AltME world for a few weeks, mainly because AltME isn’t working correctly on Linux. The only time I log on is on my OS X machine if I remember or on Windows via VMWare if I’m not too busy. Turns out that Maxim (pointillistic.com, I think) left a message for me that reMark is available for messing with. I think the idea is that you can use reMark to build static Web sites, very similar to the way that WebMake or ZenWeb do. This is Rebol, of course, so the approach is going to be a bit different.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in REBOL
Apr 30, 2006 (Updated Jul 11, 2009)
Coolnamehere · rebol ·
I had to share a “Eureka!” moment that I recently experienced about REBOL. I never did get around to refining it, but it stands here as a rambling testament of - well, as a testament of my ability to ramble. I might end up refining it later, or I might not. I just didn’t want the thoughts to disappear in air as thoughts are sometimes known to do.
REBOL Babysteps - 04 Repeating Yourself
Mar 7, 2005 (Updated Jul 11, 2009)
Coolnamehere [REBOL Babysteps] · rebol · learn ·
Now we know how to do things, and we know how to choose whether or not we will do something. We’re getting close to having some real skills. We just need to get the understanding of one more concept before we reach the first little plateau of programming knowledge. We need to learn how to do a task more than once. Well, besides just running the script again, but that doesn’t really count.
Monitor Your Battery Life With REBOL
Feb 28, 2005 (Updated Jul 11, 2009)
Coolnamehere · rebol · learn ·
One thing you like to keep track of on your laptop is how much juice is left in your battery. There’s nothing quite like being in the middle of some insane hacking session and watching as the computer suddenly gets tired and blacks out on you. Of course, I’ve already got a handy battery monitor in my KDE panel, but what if I’m not in KDE? Okay, okay, there are handy battery monitors for nearly every desktop environment out there. That’s not my point, though. My point is that I’d like to explore some basic system stuff using REBOL on an Ubuntu 8.10 system. Got it? Okay, good. Now that we’ve settled this little detail, let’s move on.
REBOL Babysteps - 03 Making Decisions
Feb 27, 2005 (Updated Jul 11, 2009)
Coolnamehere [REBOL Babysteps] · rebol · learn ·
In part 1 I gave you a first cautious glance at the REBOL programming language. In part 2 I extended that glance to a peek at the excellent REBOL/View GUI library. Let’s continue learning how to program with Rebol. Today I want to get you started with some structured programming by introducing you to selection structures. Selection structures make it possible to decide whether or not to do something based on a test. Here are a few uses for a simple selection structure.
REBOL Babysteps - 01 Getting Started
Dec 26, 2004 (Updated Apr 9, 2017)
Coolnamehere [REBOL Babysteps] · rebol · learn ·
REBOL is the “Relative Expression-Based Object Language”, and it was developed by Carl Sassenrath. Who is Carl Sassenrath? Why, he’s one of the people responsible for the amazing operating system which powered the Amiga computer. What’s the Amiga? Why, the Amiga was only the incredibly robust and cool computer released by the same company that brought the world’s first personal computer, Commodore. What’s Commodore? Stop bothering me, kid. Just take it from a relative old-timer: the Amiga put a whole heck of a lot of power into a consumer-affordable personal computer, and it wasn’t really matched by other computers for a good five or ten years. Nowadays, I look at REBOL and it feels like the first language I’ve come across to take lessons from past languages and apply them in a new context, rather than just reimplement them with different syntax.
REBOL Babysteps - 02 Getting Started With View
Dec 26, 2004 (Updated Jul 11, 2009)
Coolnamehere [REBOL Babysteps] · rebol · learn ·
I’m sure you thought that getting started was fun, but it really didn’t do anything to show off REBOL. I’d like to go through almost exactly the same process, but this time focussing my attention on REBOL/View. So let’s give it a try!
Dec 26, 2004 (Updated Jul 11, 2009)
Coolnamehere · rebol ·
One of REBOL’s strengths is the rich selection of native datatypes. This selection is part of what makes it so easy to express solutions to your problems, because there is less “mental mapping” to make as you use or create an abstract type to represent an important concept. Learning this selection is also one of the challenges for those who are trying to master the language. I am facing that challenge right now, so I decided to make this table of native REBOL datatypes and how they are expressed.
Dec 25, 2004 (Updated Jul 11, 2009)
Coolnamehere [REBOL Babysteps] · rebol · learn ·
Dec 22, 2004 (Updated Apr 9, 2017)
Coolnamehere · rebol ·
This is unusual. I’ve come across the first language that I don’t want to tell you about. I don’t know why I want to keep REBOL a secret. It has been very useful even in the limited roles that I have given it so far. The language is consistent and pleasant to work with. It has a richness of datatypes that just can’t be matched by other languages. The GUI library, View, is surprisingly straightforward for simple tasks, and there are excellent libraries like RebGUI to make it just as easy for more elaborate interfaces.