EyeAm wrote:
@whoosh777:
I knew most of that. I wasn't necessarily advocating REBOL outside of the fact Carl created Amiga OS and, only then, "IF" REBOL would be sufficient. I think I put enough "IFs" in my post about it. :-)
my criticism is more of the example usage of REBOL.
we need new ideas, but to evaluate an idea one needs to be shown an impressive example achieved with the idea.
eg Unix and its software were completely created in C which PROVES that C is impressive.
and because php is a rewiring of C, php automagically is impressive.
@both: I tried REBOL once, myself, and did not find it intuitive; and wondered where the genius being the Amiga OS was (I know, probably blasphemy--but still the truth).
its the same reason that a top tennis player may be no good at say badminton.
I specialised in OS's AND languages at uni, and can tell you that Sassenrath's OS work is ahead of the mainstream. (except for things like security and safety)
languages are a COMPLETELY different form of subject, and in fact languages are MORE DIFFICULT than OS's
expertise and insights in the one DONT transfer to the other!
eg if you are fluent at english you wont necessarily be fluent at french!
it is like comparing poetry to political speeches.
the former is about aesthetics, the latter about persuasion.
aesthetics can be combined with persuasion, but you need to be proficient at each to be proficient at combining.
also there are much more (in quantity) competent people in languages than in OS's. which means you can only innovate in languages with a lot of major new ideas. As there is a whole crowd of people with the same intention.
most people within languages will be implementing C, but they will be as competent as can be at that.
but there have been a lot of people over the decades working on the theoretical basis of languages, and a lot of the ideas cannot be improved on as they are theoretically perfect.
furthermore server script languages is not the way to make your mark, as scripting is always a relatively superficial phenomenon.
the really difficult stuff is application programming languages, the most successful of which is C.
eg most languages, scripting or otherwise will be written in C.
usually Modula, BASIC etc are all written in C. HiSoft BASIC for instance AFAIK is written in C!
script languages tend to be dealing with text and files, whereas app programming languages deal with memory and text + files are represented as memory entities.
script languages delegate the more difficult things to app programming binaries, eg php delegates the graphics to the browser as html.
script languages are basically special purpose languages, whereas app programming languages are general purpose and deal with the hardware directly.
you can do anything at all with C, but it isnt feasible to say create an OS with a script language. Maybe it can be done but its a bit futile!
this is why php is such a winner, as it uses an app programming syntax but rewired as a script language.
ie it is a rewiring of much more powerful and proven technology.
this forum is an example of what you can do with php
also no matter how good REBOL is, it is unlikely to outdo php by more than a narrow margin.
OS's are about asynchronicity, parallel efficiency, etc, that is where Sassenrath has very deep insights which Windows is completely ignorant of.
the AmigaOS kernel is designed around very deep insights. Windows has no insights at all and is merely work at quite a superficial level.
Windows does contain innovations but they are all on the surface eg it has good cut and paste, but that is just Desktop structure.
the Desktop is very interesting to the user but has nothing to do with the kernel!
you could implement the Windows desktop above AmigaOS if you chose to.
someone created an interesting alternative desktop for AmigaOS called Scalos supplied with AIAB.
Basically someone has created a fairly banale but standard kernel for Microsoft and MS are just dabbling above something they dont understand.
their kernel has the standard features but is HUGELY inefficient.
Windows NT, XP, Vista are all derived from the same underlying work.
Apparently Bill Gates hired the guy in charge of creating VMS and said: do the same for me, and that lead to Windows NT. And all the other Windows versions are just different
customisations of the same albatros.
Just as all versions of AmigaOS are all derived from Sassenrath's work.
and all versions of Linux are just rearranging the same 1978 Unix architecture, invented at a time when they still used punched cards!
Linux is a bit like 68k-AmigaOS 3.9, a very refined enhancement of something from long ago.
but all the versions of Windows I think are derived from the same source, whereas Linux, AROS and Morphos are reimplementations.
all the different versions of Linux are just tampering on the surface of a UFO.
they repainted the UFO, and gave it a snazzy name, and they put a good doormat.
languages couldnt be more different and are a completely serial problem, and speed is irrelevant AFA the compiler goes. (unless you use an interpreter but its difficult to achieve semantic power and speed with an interpreter except by partial compilation) Any asynchronicity and parallelism is above the language. eg double buffering is parallelism which you can do with C, but it has nothing to do with C.
and asm is a serial language, but say the CPU gets an interrupt, that is asynchronous but is ABOVE the asm.
"language" is just one level of abstraction, and a typical php script is a language pastiche of html and C.
the fragments are "language" but the totality is above the languages.
you want fast binaries, but the compiler itself could take some minutes to compile a file.
to do anything interesting with languages requires a lot of very abstract subsystems which process the semantics.
I still somewhat anticipate REBOL 3, to see if things change--and to see what it really is (scripting language, messaging language, CGI-like, Java-like, etc.), because I'm not convinced the creators of it really even know what it is or can adequately describe it.
if he has any true innovations they should be in the first version,
just as his true OS innovations were in the Amiga1000 and are innovative till today.
later versions of anything are just fine tuning and tidying up or god forbid they are globbing other peoples ideas.
eg all versions of PHP are the brilliant innovation of just reusing the C syntax.
the changes are going to be with the library calls and maybe the implementation.
I havent done any php coding for months, but IIRC later versions of php have a unified way of processing args
eg args can be sent in the URL but things like text are sent by a different arg mechanism,
with later versions of php you can deal with both arg mechanisms by the same code.
truly groundbreaking innovations would require a brand new product,
