Rebol, rebol, your semantics are a mess
Jeff Bone (jbone@activerse.com)
Fri, 25 Jun 1999 18:24:23 -0500
One last programming language rant, here. I dunno if you guys have
looked at Rebol yet or not; if not, you should if you're into language
issues: http://www.rebol.com. It's kind of interesting; it generally
appears to be a lambda calculus-based language in the Lisp tradition,
but with a more traditional "block-structured" sort of syntax, an object
/ namespace mechanism, and correspondingly stickier semantics. Still,
it's pretty interesting, and obviously quite powerful --- there are some
amazingly terse example programs ("scripts") that do pretty cool stuff
up on the site. It's still pretty wet behind the ears, but might be
something to watch.
It's got an interesting history, too. Carl Sassenrath of Amiga fame has
apparently been working on it for years. Some time ago, apparently
disgusted with the world in general and the industry in particular (and
who wouldn't be, given all he went through) he bought a ranch
("Sassenranch") outside of Ukiah, CA (north of SFO) and retired there to
focus on Rebol, and end-all "Internet Messaging Language."
Anyway, check out the site, and the language. It's probably first-order
windmill tilting, but interesting anyway.
jb