World: r3wp

block: [a,b,c,d,e,f]; should be allowed with comma as blank separator

not within rebol code.

but when loading from a string yes.

ahah

The point to prohibiting commas is to prevent people from doing that.

what we are saying is that there should then be a function called 
"impoert

oops.

'IMPORT

For modules? That's what we use IMPORT for.

Brian we know historicaly that the prohibition is a wrong way ;-)

then, maybe, although it does the same thing AS load, it wouldn't 
be used by the interpreter, and would explicitely allow the interpreter 
to use the loading functionality which already understands about 
95% of human readable ascii text as it is.

hehehe

Not for this it isn't.

really brian, I can't recall how many times I've had ascii files 
from sources which I could almost just load as-is.  and when the 
extra syntax, was just useless decoration, which can be ignored.

probably Carl during his childhood was hurted by a comma so that 
he can't see them now

I do agree with brianh and Carl that I refuse to have to deal with 
commas within rebol code.

everytime I've gone back to python or some other C-based language 
like javascript... I've cursed at the uselessness of the commas I 
have to type.

but I would like to USE data which has some of it... which isn't 
even code, most of the time...

a simple CSV file, for example.

but you are not forced to use them, it's just one more separator

but if we allow them, people from other language will start using 
them, and really, its going to be some kind of polio virus.

anyway...

People underestimate how much thought went into the REBOL syntax. 
REBOL was carefully and deliberately designed for quick programming. 
One of the most important choices was to not use commas and periods, 
because it is tricky to tell them apart or see them when reading 
a lot of code. They are not used in numbers either, because they 
are ambiguous in internationally visible code.

brian, allowing a relaxed mode alllows me to be quick. as opposed 
to try and manually redo what rebol does already.  using the actual 
commas within code IS evil, don't get me wrong.

Unfortunately a lot of the syntax choices were based on the US keyboard 
(hence the [ and ]).

This plays havok with mobile or foreign use.

what other choices we had ?

mobile keyboards... ouch true!  the  [ ] aren't even on them usually.

Strangely enough, the ( and ) of Lisp derivitives is better supported 
on phones :)

but then the { } aren't there either and in fact, { } on european 
keybord sometimes is even worse... (alt key use beurk)

There used to be someone on the ML who was always complaining about 
the WinCE version ... and the keys

but parens imply an expression... not containment... so I do feel 
that the use of ( ) is not very a very good choice for rebol, where 
both are intrinsically different in rebol.

people are always whinning.....    ;-)

Brian ( ) are used a lot in human languages ;-)

I think it was Brian ...

how do you do emoticons if not :)

[

, "]", "/" and "-" were chosen because they can be typed on a US 
English keyboard without using the shift key. The fact that you can 
program in REBOL without using the shift key most of the time speeds 
up your typing of REBOL code (though not the name REBOL).

I'll just make a remark about "invalid" data.  If the lexical stashed 
those in foreign! it would no longer be "invalid", it would become 
the REBOL foreign! datatype!   You can't add email! url!   but they 
are sitll loadable values.   And again, professionals are NOT who 
I want to assist here.  It's the casual home user.   Allow 1000 casual 
users, 30 might become rebols, 1 might become a valued member of 
REBOL3 that we learn something from or develops Video Altme.   We 
add to the pile.

beware Brian, there are some commas in your last sentence...

a comma would be lexically foreign!

I was typing in English, not REBOL. There's a difference.

Need the Rebolish group for contrast (if it's still around...)

If I had known English and REBOL the same amount of time, I would 
be able to read REBOL quicker because the rules are stricter, and 
because I wouldn't have to look for periods and commas. This goes 
more so for C-like syntax - even slower to read.

brian, I think everyone is just talking about a standardized, way 
to load human-readable data.  we know its not REBOL data.

On my current screen I can barely see periods and commas in AltMe 
(netbook).

Why can't junk be REBOL data, with semantics of junk!  ??

If can tell someone that he can use his "CURRENT" data directly within 
rebol, there is a chance he'll actually try it out..

Ahh, the point exactly.  ;)

we aren't talking about code, we are talking about DATA.

I think we should have a function called 'ASSIMILATE.