World: r3wp

I think the only reason it won't implode is the size of the user 
base.. millions, if not billions, are spent working around any issues. 
It will evolve.

I picked up a 3G to replace my 1st gen iphone today..  screw Rebol.. 
give me Cocoa.

And I don't even own a Mac.

Terry - then explain me, why everybody tries to move away from browser 
with their RIA? Flash/Flex, Silverlight, etc.?

Screw REBOL, give me Cocoa ... nice ... so where is my Cocoa for 
Windows? :-)

The mobile market is even more crowded. WinMobile 6.1, Symbian, iPhone 
(OS-X ?), Android, OpenMoko (various linux mini OS variants)

I don't think they're tyring to move away from the browser so much 
as trying to bring the desktop towards the browser... probably just 
because they can.. and I don't believe those technologies will get 
much traction.. especially compared to the browser.

You are the second one who said "because they can" ... interesting 
:-)

My question is this.. "What is the end game?" Is everything going 
to be a little RIA? I doubt it. A clunky browser? Probably not.

Where wil it be in 10, 25, 100 years?

Do you know the answer?

I said it xy years ago, that it will happen. Nowadays browser is 
considered being "universal app container" ... the strange thing 
is, that while it provides crap speed (even with AJAX) compared to 
native apps, ppl are forgivable here. But - in order for browser 
to keep its chances, we need to keep the standards. Looking at W3C 
and all its MLs, I wonder how cross platform, cross browser support 
goes. There are technologies for multimedia like SMIL, etc., SVG 
- crappy supported.

Some things are timeless.  
- Everything is data. 

- Software is a solution to a problem, or some form of entertainment.

And now we can see Google trying to keep their own agenda - moving 
ppl to Gears ... which has nothing in common with standards - it 
is linking ppl to use their services .... and off-line app support? 
There are some first tries, but that is it - just only tries - no 
standard for off-line apps. We recently collapsed our CRM system, 
because thinking that today's world is fully on-line, is wishfull 
thinking. So we are developing off-line plus sync ...

Storage was once an huge issue.. not anymore. 
internet transfer rate was once a huge issue.. not anymore.
Always on connectivity will fall as well.

Personally, I think it boils down to 'solutions' rather than technologies. 
My wife couldn't care less how the photos get from here to Australia.

To much emphasis here is spent of technology .. and very little on 
solutions... like S3 support, API mashups blah blah blah.

The greatest killer app the world has ever seen could very well be 
built using Rebol, which would generate a massive following overnight. 
However, the killer app itself will be about an idea.. not something 
special Rebol offers, or any other language for that matter. When 
it boils down, all languages are pretty much the same. It becomes 
a religious thing and a preference.  There's a strong tendency in 
this biz for developers to stick with what they know, even if the 
alternative is 'better' (whatever that means)

We should probably move to advocacy group ....

As for REBOL3, I can't see bigger impact than some custom app development, 
or even some killer app.

browser plug-in could get us some interest, if ppl are willing to 
press one button to install it ....

maybe JR (REBOL for JavaScript) could help a bit ... it would be 
kind of your next javascript library .... no installation .... VID 
way of defining gui, translated to JS ...

Terry: browser... iPhone.... Safari. iPhone apps are a lucrative 
niche or a nice add-on (I have an iPod Touch so I know what I'm talking 
about..., and am in the process of getting an extra Mac for -among 
others- writing IPhone apps for fun).

You'll see that apps work on Safari as well.

Apple's App Store is doing for software what eBay did for auctions 
... it's a brave new world when I can buy an 'app' for $1.99 and 
2 mouse clicks. Cell phones and the software that runs on them is 
where the growth (and future) is.

The browser as the launch platform for applications has always been 
an interesting idea. The fundamental problem of the sheer complexity 
of it can be solved with R3. If done right, it can completely wipe 
the floor with browsers and AJAX. I think the problem is that we 
haven't been speaking in a language that people can understand, such 
as "browser", "web2.0" and "webserver", but instead "dialects", "VID", 
"Viewtop" and "X Internet" and people go "huh?".

Some things I believe are needed to do this right:


- Browser form factor. People are used to browsers, not Viewtops. 
What's always the first thing a complete newbie computer user uses, 
when wanting to do anything on the internet? A webbrowser. I don't 
want a desktop inside my desktop. There are tens of solutions for 
such things and they are almost all forgotten. Carl is doing the 
REBOL browser. When you fire up R3, you will get what looks like 
a webbrowser and acts like one. The concept has to work equally well 
for people like us, as well as 5-year-olds and 95-year-olds.


- Do apps that are similar to webapps, like GMail. That's a quick 
way to compare. Don't you think a 50k GMail look-a-like inside a 
REBOL browser running at native speeds would be _slightly_ impressive? 
Remember to say that you can serve 5 times more users with the same 
bandwidth. REBOL can help make raw numbers look better without much 
effort. Google would have to use it as a content platform. They have 
no other choice. :-) Chrome? What's that?


- Plugins suddenly are very flexible. You don't have plugins as in 
Firefox, but helper scripts that can enhance/change your browsing 
experience. 15k full screen document reader that prettifies plain 
text files? Sure thing. Blog posts presented in that would be much 
nicer to read. Out goes the PDF reader.


- Do apps that are completely out of the league of AJAX, such as 
multithreaded P2P systems. In fact, why not build P2P capabilities 
right in? Have different instances of the browser allow users to 
connect and chat, when they are visiting the same "Rebsite". It's 
sort of like going into a physical store and chatting with the other 
customers and you decide to exchange business cards. Initial contact 
without needing email. Do the same thing with chat support for an 
article that you bought at that  "rebsite". Current websites are 
almost completely anonymous. You don't feel you are entering a live 
community. Coded in REBOL/Services.


- Webpages are now REBOL scripts. In R3, scripts can be closed and 
encrypted, so you can't read the source and you can sell scripts 
and have them signed. The best you can do right now is some kind 
of code obfuscation.

- Windows, MacOSX and Linux version.


- "A webbrowser that directly supports OpenGL without obscure/limited 
3rd party plugins." Say that again in your head.


- It's very important that the public get to see that creating REBOL 
scripts for the browser is very similar to creating plain HTML pages. 
REBOL scripts can be served off a plain webserver. All the infrastructure 
is already there. Or how about serving scripts from the browser itself? 
AltME can both be a client and a server. It's that P2P thing again.

- Browser would run wherever R3 runs.


- Market it as Web 4.0. Market it as a direct competition to current 
webbrowsing.


- Browser would be a 500-600 kb downloadable exe that starts immediately 
without installation. From deciding to get it, to be using it to 
browse "Rebpages", it should not take more than 30-45 seconds.

- We need AltME in that browser (Altissimo?) as well as QTask.

For developers:


- It's easy to create an HTML file in notepad and display it in your 
favourite browser. It's going to be equally easy to create a REBOL 
script in notepad and see it running in your REBOL browser. A 5-year-old 
who has just learned to type, should be able to create a script and 
display it.

- One language for everything.


- Everything is free. You can start out with notepad. The barrier 
for creating content is about as low as it can get.


- You wanna code slow web 2.0 apps or fast web 4.0 apps? Hard choice, 
I know.

That's a great vision Henrik.

Henrik that is very interesting.  Is that your idea or what we should 
be seeing when R3 is released?

A REBOL browser is a great way to really get REBOL out there and 
might be used by non-developers just as their browsing tool instead 
of current browsers.

Paul, I began rambling about replacing the viewtop with a browser-like 
deployment platform in the r3-alpha world. I didn't expect that 30 
seconds after posting it, Carl wrote something akin to "Henrik, that's 
basically what I'm doing now." and at that point he hadn't said anything 
for over a week. :-)

He has since only talked more about the new VID, so I don't know 
if he's leaving the browser implementation up to us or if he's actually 
doing the browser itself. But it looks like the plan is for a browser.

This is basically what I meant earlier about being "psyched about 
a REBOL browser". I left out things like video playback and advanced 
audio, because I don't know yet what the approach for making those 
things possible will be. But if they are possible, they would be 
equally possible, like OpenGL would be possible.


And if it turns out that he won't do the browser himself, then it 
can easily be a community effort, not hard to build.

Not hard to build, but hard to design. Graphics models, interaction 
models, security issues, trust issues, resizing and reflow, these 
are all tricky problems. I can see why it would be taking a while 
for Carl to think through the implications.

But a REBOL Browser will introduce REBOL to others that have never 
used REBOL.  And if REBOL gains some acceptance then it means that 
other browsers will have to begin to integrate some compatibiliity 
with REBOL.

yes, the point is to say "hey, this is like a webbrowser, only much 
faster."

Henrik: "When you fire up R3, you will get what looks like a webbrowser 
and acts like one." - not just that, I want R3 not just to look like 
a webbrowser and act like a webbroser but actually TO BE a webbrowser 
- download R3 (few hunderts kB), run it and be able to browse REBOL 
pages - and if you enter *.html - just show some window that says 
"downloading" and download some REBOL plugin that can display webpages 
(being based on Gecko, Webkit, whatever) - it will be few megs download, 
but people are used to it. This is definitely possible - it's possible 
to display OpenGL etc in View window so I believe there are some 
libraries to do this ("somebody" just needs to make an interface 
to them ;)'


The thing is that R3 browser (and just a R3 browser) will be once 
again a great platform without apps (Be Inc etc...). If R3 browser 
can display classic HTML+JS+CSS+DOM+XML+AJAX+WHATEVER combo it's 
win-win situation. Lots of apps available and we can improve them 
one after one to show it can be done much easier and faster.

yes, I agree

But we also have to realize that REBOL is only the means, not the 
end. I don't know if the REBOL browser should directly go under the 
REBOL name. Perhaps the name should be more inline with what KHTML 
or Gecko means for other browsers.

And simply say "we made a new kind of webbrowser. it's much faster 
than your old webbrowser.". Perhaps market it as a side product of 
REBOL. This would bring up the old discussion again of what REBOL 
is.

Good luck. Firefox receives $57 milion annually from Google alone. 
Go big, or go home.

Well, even the Firefox had not that backup from begining.

It was just an independent brach of Mozilla bloat.

what about the new documentation of vid in rebol3 ?

Making another web browser won't help - new web browsers are made 
every day,and most don't catch on. Google's Chrome is an exception 
mostly because of the reputation of Google, and some nice features, 
but even with that it is unlikely to make much headway against the 
browsers that people are already using. Web browsers are commodities.

Firefox wasn't an independent branch of Mozilla, it was a branch 
of Mozilla (the software) written and supported by Mozilla (the organization 
with corporate sponsors and backing).

Has the API (or header file) for the R3.dll been published anywhere 
yet?

No, nor has any R3 dll.

At least not for a while. We have had only standalone builds for 
almost a year.

The API isn't set at this point, because of the core changes and 
more.

I only have the public alpha which has a dll.