World: r3wp

CALL has been completely rewritten in R3 - it has almost nothing 
in common with CALL in R2, and is much lower-level. If you want to 
compare the startup times, if you use the same method to call all 
of them you should have something comparable. R3's CALL doesn't wait 
for apps to return yet on Windows, so writing your wrapper script 
in R2 might be easier.

BrianH: looking at tickets ... have we reached some positive point, 
where we fixed most of datatype conversion related tickets, and hence 
can move on ... to finally see the plugins released? :-) What can 
you see as the next logical priority to take? Or should we move to 
let's say networking? Networking is still not comparable to R2 - 
many protocols missing ....

Why is 'call limited in functionality in comparison to r2 version, 
and why also 'shift misses all its refinements?

CALL is lower-level, and thus faster in theory, and easier to implement 
on different platforms which might not have all of the concepts in 
the old R2 CALL. SHIFT doesn't need any refinements, and is *much* 
faster without them. Refinement processing overhead is really significant, 
even for natives, so low-level math functions tend to not have them.

Datatype conversions: I think that once TO-HEX is removed for most 
datatypes the conversion issues of the TO-* set will be done. The 
rest will be handled by proper conversion functions, that we don't 
need to write immediately. We should probably wait on implementing 
those as natives until the APIs are worked out in REBOL versions, 
or plugin code. We can speed them up later once their behavior is 
agreed on.

As for what's next: Carl is working on finalizing the plugin model 
- apparently getting the decoupling right has been tricky. I am fixing 
module importing and making a semi-formal model for the module system, 
and working on R2/Forward. I have an idea on how to simplify the 
specification of port schemes - implementation of port schemes is 
already simplified - but the module stuff is stuck in my head so 
I have to work on it first. If someone else wants to work on protocols, 
go right on ahead, preferably the useful ones first :)

There are a few data making/conversion tickets pending (some classified 
as "problem"): 984, 1001, 1034, 1056, 1081, 1109,1110. They don't 
seem too difficult to me, but then again, I have no accesss to source 
code.

Rudolf, can you set your user color slightly different? I can barely 
see your name. Thanks.

984 is no longer a problem, but might be misguided. 1001 and 1056 
had one attempt to implement them that hasn't worked yet. 1081 is 
probably a bad idea (no offence intended, meijeru). 1109 and 1110 
are dependent on the result of the blog #222 discussion. 1034 is 
critical in the long run, but not as important in the short run.

Thanks for bringing up #984 - I had forgotten to remove the problem 
status when the problem was solved.

hmm... immediate! and internal! typesets. I wonder what the first 
one is?

My guess is that immediate! types are ones whose values fit within 
a value slot of a block or context, and thus are not reference types. 
I would put all of the numeric types including money! in that set, 
as well as date!, time!, tuple!, and event!. Most of the time gob! 
can fit in there too, afaict, as can error! with codes less than 
100.

I was requesting such a typeset for documentation purposes months 
ago.

Henrik, my copy of ALTME does not allow me to change my colors anymore 
(or I haven't found the trick).

Robert, go to Home and Settings. There you can set your user color.

Rudolf, that is. :-) Sorry.

Third icon from the right on the upper right of the screen. The "Your 
User Color" setting.

#984 is not solved, because mold/all still does not reproduce the 
header -- I accept fully that the value is not recoverable , but 
mold/all should preferably provide the information

It is not solved, but it is no longer a problem.

I take that to mean that you know HOW to solve it, but haven't gotten 
around to it...

Having "problem" status means that there is some (possibly temporary) 
reason it can't be solved at the moment. Then you look to the comments 
for why.

As to #1081, I merely pointed out the inconsistency, and did not 
advance a solution. The more inconsistencies, the more documentation 
is needed, and the more there is for the user to remember.

As for why it might be misguided, that is because the stated purpose 
of that request - recovering the module in serialized form - is definitely 
impossible, and would be a major security hole if it were possible 
(which is part of why it is not).

Ah, you're meijeru, cool. Nice to chat with you :)

The system wouldn't let me make meijeru my username on Altme, even 
though I requested Altme membership through rebol.org where I also 
known as meijeru.

The problem with getting rid of inconsistencies is when they are 
there for good reasons. In most cases you reported, they were not.

On modules again, I said already I accept the non-recoverability. 
But mold/all is there (also) for providing the fullest information 
about the value possible.

Why don't you try the settings change for the user color...

How's that (black now)

Cool. Back to modules, that is why the ticket was undismissed. It 
was only marked as a problem because one alpha temporarily made it 
even worse (later fixed).

Look at #1081 - Carl asked you a question that you didn't answer. 
Having no answer to that question is why it is still problem status.

meijeru: dunno what rules here are. I always agreed that ppl should 
be able to choose their nick-name here, but some other had different 
opinion on that IIRC. But maybe we could ask for change, as you are 
here for short time yet ....

BrianH: I answered the question now -- for me, explicit specification 
has precedence over implicit specification.

Thanks for that - now Carl can decide (this is in his purview).

Carl has announced the applicability of logical operators to type(set)s 
for a77. At first sight, this duplicates union ( ~ or) intersect 
(~ and) and difference (~ xor). Then again, both sets of operators 
are also defined on bitsets, so there is consistency in this duplication, 
and I suspect that typesets are really bitsets, internally. However, 
there is one extension: and/or/xor may have a single datatype for 
their second operand (also for their first???). This is not the case 
with union etc.

Typesets are bitsets internally, but they are immediate types, while 
bitset! is a reference type. This puts an upper limit on the number 
of built-in types - based on the number of free bits in a value slot.

I think your assessment is accurate though.

There are some occasions where the behavior of an op! or action! 
is different depending on what datatype its first argument is. Actions 
dispatch based on the type of their first argument only, so making 
the behavior work with the types reversed might require double-dispatch 
to work. This is a similar situation to that of Smalltalk classes.

hmm, it seems Carl did not succeed to resolve Plug-in interface, 
so we are getting some "simple method" ....

It's also possible that excessive complexity was the problem that 
needed resolving, and the "simple method" is the solution :)

yes. It is now at least clear, we will see soon :-)

A quick update on plugins - http://www.rebol.net/r3blogs/0226.html

nice

What's bad about a simple plug-in solution?

Only bad if simple = limited

maybe it's time for a beta version, as most features are in its place 
then?

still need modules and more bug fixes

I think that when we hit beta, people might expect to start writing 
production scripts with it. So we have to be sure that the important 
areas won't change too much between beta and final.

Two questions about calling other programs /scripts:


* when is CALL going to get some refinements -- like /wait and /output 
?

* what is the point of:
     launch none 
    ?

AFAIK:

* CALL might or might not get refinements - it may be a better strategy 
to just fix CALL so it doesn't need them. In any case, changes to 
CALL are likely to happen after the host code is released, since 
that is where CALL is implemented.

* What is the point of <anything about how LAUNCH behaves>: It's 
due for a complete redo - none of its current behavior is intended.