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Comment by johnisgood | Hacker News Reader

Tcl and Rebol are great. The code is compact, very easy to understand and quick to write, especially Rebol. You can do GUI in both Tcl/Tk and Rebol as well. You might want to check Rebol out as well: http://www.rebol.com/docs/expert-intro.html (or http://www.rebol.com/docs/design-objectives.html).

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You probably already are aware of it but there's an effort to create an open source successor to Rebol. See the Red Programming Language site [0].

I've played around with Red and it's pretty interesting. Though rather different from Tcl. Red compiles to native code out of the box which is an advantage. Currently Red is limited to 32-bit output. When they get 64-bit working along with self-hosting compiler I think the language could become a major success.

[0] https://www.red-lang.org/

I know about Red. Unfortunately it requires 32-bit libraries, whereas Rebol 3 does not. I could not get Red to work as easily and nicely as I did get Rebol 3. :/

> When they get 64-bit working along with self-hosting compiler I think the language could become a major success.

I agree. I will most likely switch to it (though I have not dig'd deeper, hopefully it follows the philosophy of Rebol). I will check if my Rebol 3 programs work with it, or without much modification. I suppose as long as it supports 64-bit, has libraries for SHA512 (`system/catalog/checksums/sha512` in Rebol 3), along with `random/secure` and `random/seed now/precise`, I suppose it should be fine.

In any case, it is a deal-breaker for me. I really want them to get 64-bit working and have a self-hosted compiler. I wish them the best.

For the people who are interested: when I say Rebol 3, I am referring to https://github.com/Oldes/Rebol3. There is a decent and detailed post on SO about these implementations and their differences. I found Oldes' one to be the most ideal.

Thanks, didn't know about the Rebol3 version in the link. I'll have to look into it. AFAIK the Red developers goal is to extend the Rebol philosophy to a modern, open source tool that can serve a number of high and low level purposes. Red is coming along but slowly. Not surprising given the lofty ambitions of the project. I too hope they succeed.

You should definitely give it a go! This is the SO post I mentioned, for what it is worth: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31510930/rebol3-what-is-...

It was very easy to get Oldes' Rebol 3 up and running. It works. There are many extensions as well. My only problem is the lack of GUI (a huge problem, to be honest, because I want to contrast it to Tcl/Tk which I love as well), or at least I have not found the way to make it work. I might be doing something wrong though, or I might be missing something. I have not had enough time to search it up and get it to work.

Anyone who knows how to get GUI to work with Oldes' Rebol 3 please, let me know, it would be much appreciated. Any recent (and decent) Rebol (or Rebol 3) may suffice, as long as it is 64-bit.

[1] I believe it to be a major reason for Rebol not being used much. We need a proper, working Rebol! One working, actively maintained implementation, not hundreds of half-assed ones. :( I really hope Red makes it.

Ah, Oldes' Rebol 3 does not come with a graphics system. You need https://www.atronixengineering.com/downloads for that.

Rebol was created by Carl Sassenrath who wrote the Amiga OS and put pre-emptive multi-tasking in it.

After he left Commodore he wrote Amiga Logo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sassenrath

Yup. I have no experience AT ALL with Amiga OS. I really love Rebol though. Perhaps I would love Amiga OS as well. I should read up on it. Any interesting writings on its philosophy and whatnot? Similar to what could be found about Plan 9, for example.

Rebol is seriously cool and criminally overlooked on HN. Unlike TCL, it didn't survive to the same extent. There is the whole Red effort (very cool), but I'm not sure if they'll get there. I wish them the best of luck though.

Yeah, so do I. I mentioned in my other comment that I do not use it because of lack of 64-bit support and whatnot. If they do get there, and I could replace my Rebol 3 programs with Red, then I will switch to it. As for Rebol 3, I use https://github.com/Oldes/Rebol3.

For what it is worth, people ought to check out the Rebol cookbook. It is full of amazing stuff. So easy to implement somewhat complicated things. I am seriously wondering why it is not more popular. I would say a lot has to do with the fact that it has been open sourced too late (should have been open to begin with, IMO), and that there are too many different, but somewhat alike implementations[1]. It is confusing to a newcomer. They do not know what to use, why, and if it actually is under active development and will continue to be.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31510930/rebol3-what-is-...

So I just dived in to the Rebol cookbook myself, and I came across Rebol 3 implementations of some of the goodies from there that are originally written in Rebol. For example I stumbled upon https://zolk3ri.name/cgit/rebol-cr-auth/ and https://gist.github.com/gchiu/5288312. They are both quite cool. It truly does make me love Rebol even more!

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