4 ms·

There are a lot of topics here now, which is great, and the opening question about what to make of Red is a good one. The problem in answering it is the same pr

There are a lot of topics here now, which is great, and the opening question about what to make of Red is a good one. The problem in answering it is the same problem we have when pitching it to people: it's hard to sum up. Is there a catch? Yes. More than one actually. One is that, because we are building things from the ground up, we don't get things for free that other languages do. For example, JVM-based langs get a lot for free, but at a cost. Another catch, and a big one, is that Red is fundamentally different in some design aspects, both superficial (syntax) and deep (all is data, words and bindings, etc.). Those two things deter a lot of people. We get that. If you want to keep doing things mostly the way you always have, Red is not for you. If you just want lots of familiar libs and features, you may have to wait for them, or help build them. This makes us a self-selecting community. We don't want to be a cult, but we also won't compromise certain things with the hope of it making us more popular. There are few easy choices here. For those who find Red, and give it a shot, not all will like it, and not all who like it will understand it or use it effectively. We also accept that. For those who have the courage to try something new (I mean, really try it), and who take the time to understand it (the process of which brings its own benefits, no matter what language you use), and who reach the moment where it clicks in their head, there is no going back. Whether you support and commend features, or criticize them fairly, they are features. To have meaningful discourse about Red, we need to go deeper. Much deeper. If you only want to compare Red to other tools, on their terms, we'll often lose. But if you look at what Red can do, that they can't, and Red's fundamental goals, it becomes clear that comparisons don't mean much. That's true for any 2 languages. It can help, provide context, etc., but ultimately you have to evaluate a language or tool on its own merits, just as you have to evaluate yourself and see your own worth and value without comparison to others. If you think the state of software development is just fine, and a few tweaks are all we need, Red probably isn't for you. But if you have nagging doubts about why things are so hard, so big, so complex, when it seems like they should be easy, small, and simple...maybe you'll be curious and brave enough to take the Red pill. Most, we know, just want the big juicy steak. We can talk more, explain more, if people want. Gitter is our most active channel, but we can try to respond here as well. We're glad to hear what people like, and accept fair criticism.

hjek 8y ago
> One is that, because we are building things from the ground up, we don't get things for free that other languages do. For example, JVM-based langs get a lot for free, but at a cost. Red is implemented in Rebol2. That also comes at a cost due to Rebol2 not being free/libre and being abandoned.
- greggirwin 8y ago
  But that was a very important choice. Do you understand why?
  - hjek 8y ago
    > But that was a very important choice. Do you understand why? I'm sure you have your reasons for doing so, and I'm glad that it's working well for you. I'm not having a go at you for making Red run on Rebol. But I am having a go at you for having a go at Clojure for running on the JVM, while claiming that Red is built "from the ground up". All this posting about how Red is better than all other languages, and that people, who use those other ones, are stuck in their ways or not smart enough, and defensively lashing out at people who point out limitations of Red, it just comes across as megalomaniacal. Being implemented in Rebol2 apparently also "has a cost" for Red, namely that Rebol2 is abandoned, and that there's no 64-bit support, and that a otherwise free/libre programming language has non-free dependencies, and you might be in a pickle if you want to include newer versions of libraries that are presumably statically compiled into the Rebol2 binary blob, especially your SSL library... but apparently, from what I read about Rebol[0], it's only the "pro" version of Rebol that has SSL-support, so what about Red? Do you understand those issues? It's too hand-wavy to say that I'm not looking at Red "on its own terms", especially because those terms include being a "good fit for any task!"[1] [0]: https://www.freax.be/2017/03/19/rebol/ https://www.freax.be/2017/03/19/rebol/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(programming_language)
    - 9214 8y ago
      Can you back up your acqusations with palpable evidence? Neither Red author, nor any of official project representatives "made a go" on Clojure or any other language and its community, as far as I'm concerned. As for "defensive lashing" - you should make a distinction between informed, well-posed critique and arrogant, unbacked ranting. Everyone accepts the former and does not tolerate the latter - the team is no exception. And, again - either provide an evidence for what you say or back off your claims. Calling project megalomaniacal for fighting FUD is completely off base, and every criticism raised in this thread was handled politely. Heck, I can pull out any blog post from one of Clojure community members and start claiming that it represents opinions of Hickey. Would that be OK? I guess not. Even if there is a cost in using Rebol2 as bootsrapping language, it will be gone with 1.0 release. And right now Rebol source code takes roughly a quarter of whole codebase (compilers and linkers for Red and Red/System) - the rest is pure Red and its dialects. So your whole paragraph is completely irrelevant and misleading: lack of 64-bit support has nothing to do with Rebol2, bold "non-free dependency" claim does not have any weight to it (since when bootstrapping language is a dependency?) and "SSL library" passage tells me that you don't have an idea of what you're talking about. And use official resources (Red and Rebol websites) as references, would you? Wiki page is an extremely weak testimony to whatever you have to say. No project is ideal, but Red's terms are completely different from what you try to impose here. I do not say that we don't have holes in the housing - we do, and we have all what is necessary to close them.

hjek 8y ago

> One is that, because we are building things from the ground up, we don't get things for free that other languages do. For example, JVM-based langs get a lot for free, but at a cost. Red is implemented in Rebol2. That also comes at a cost due to Rebol2 not being free/libre and being abandoned.

greggirwin 8y ago
But that was a very important choice. Do you understand why?
- hjek 8y ago
  > But that was a very important choice. Do you understand why? I'm sure you have your reasons for doing so, and I'm glad that it's working well for you. I'm not having a go at you for making Red run on Rebol. But I am having a go at you for having a go at Clojure for running on the JVM, while claiming that Red is built "from the ground up". All this posting about how Red is better than all other languages, and that people, who use those other ones, are stuck in their ways or not smart enough, and defensively lashing out at people who point out limitations of Red, it just comes across as megalomaniacal. Being implemented in Rebol2 apparently also "has a cost" for Red, namely that Rebol2 is abandoned, and that there's no 64-bit support, and that a otherwise free/libre programming language has non-free dependencies, and you might be in a pickle if you want to include newer versions of libraries that are presumably statically compiled into the Rebol2 binary blob, especially your SSL library... but apparently, from what I read about Rebol[0], it's only the "pro" version of Rebol that has SSL-support, so what about Red? Do you understand those issues? It's too hand-wavy to say that I'm not looking at Red "on its own terms", especially because those terms include being a "good fit for any task!"[1] [0]: https://www.freax.be/2017/03/19/rebol/ https://www.freax.be/2017/03/19/rebol/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(programming_language)
  - 9214 8y ago
    Can you back up your acqusations with palpable evidence? Neither Red author, nor any of official project representatives "made a go" on Clojure or any other language and its community, as far as I'm concerned. As for "defensive lashing" - you should make a distinction between informed, well-posed critique and arrogant, unbacked ranting. Everyone accepts the former and does not tolerate the latter - the team is no exception. And, again - either provide an evidence for what you say or back off your claims. Calling project megalomaniacal for fighting FUD is completely off base, and every criticism raised in this thread was handled politely. Heck, I can pull out any blog post from one of Clojure community members and start claiming that it represents opinions of Hickey. Would that be OK? I guess not. Even if there is a cost in using Rebol2 as bootsrapping language, it will be gone with 1.0 release. And right now Rebol source code takes roughly a quarter of whole codebase (compilers and linkers for Red and Red/System) - the rest is pure Red and its dialects. So your whole paragraph is completely irrelevant and misleading: lack of 64-bit support has nothing to do with Rebol2, bold "non-free dependency" claim does not have any weight to it (since when bootstrapping language is a dependency?) and "SSL library" passage tells me that you don't have an idea of what you're talking about. And use official resources (Red and Rebol websites) as references, would you? Wiki page is an extremely weak testimony to whatever you have to say. No project is ideal, but Red's terms are completely different from what you try to impose here. I do not say that we don't have holes in the housing - we do, and we have all what is necessary to close them.