World: r3wp

Doc - what' coming after floating point support? Are you moving to 
work on Red itself?

I have to fix the LibC starting and ending code, then I'll move to 
Red runtime to finish it and start Red's compiler.

I'll also continue to work on the shared library support for Red/System 
at part-time, during weekends. I would like to have it working for 
the conference in Netherlands in march.

Is there something like QUIT function already?

Yes, QUIT is already defined and needs an integer return code as 
argument.

#import [
	LIBC-file cdecl [
		quit-return: "exit" [  ; Exit program, returning status code.
			status		[integer!]
		]
	]
]

yes.. just found it in C lib as well... goot to know I can use the 
quit without it - I was missing the return code

btw... is there any reason that print does not add the LF automatically?

Yes, it is hard to come up with good names for "print-with-LF" and 
"print-without-LF" functions. ;-)

if you need an LF, you can just write: print [value lf]

What about prin and print? Or print and printn ?

It's not perfect, but at least, that way, we only need a single PRINT 
function (no need to remember other names like PRINTF, PRINTLN, PRIN, 
...).

PRINT/LF ?

PRIN and PRINT: that was my first choice, but users were pushing 
hard for not having PRIN.

PRINT/LF: no refinements support in Red/System, that will come in 
Red only.

I think it is better to have print with LF by default.. but ok... 
I must repeat myself that red/system is just a low level:)

I think that it would be possible to have the following:
	
	print value   				 ;; automatic line feed
	print [value value lf]			;; no autmatic line feed

Problem is it would confuse newcomers no end.

btw... if I do print float, I get result like: 100.00000000000000 
. I guess you know this issue.

By default, PRINT for floats maps to `printf ["%.14f" f]`, I guess 
the formatting string passed to PRINTF could be improved.

Since Red is related to REBOL, prin and print seem natural choices.

LF by default: sure, but the issue is coming up with a good name 
for PRINT without LF then. We already had a debate here about that 
a few months ago, and having just PRINT ended up being the less problematic 
solution (but it's not perfect I know).

I suppose "%14f" would avoid the extra zeros? (haven't checked the 
PRINTF docs).

What is wrong with PRIN? It's not more confusing than LF

I wonder if Carl's choice for PRIN was planned or added later when 
the need for a PRINT-WITHOUT-LF arised...

And I think in 99% you want the LF :) At least I forget to add it 
all the time.

Anyway.. not important now.

The only issue with PRIN is that it looks odd to all newcomers, not 
knowing about REBOL. I guess also we all found that odd in REBOL 
while learning it. I am used to it now, but it could be seen as "weird" 
choice by people first looking at Red/System.

Also PRIN is breaking the naming conventions used in REBOL, like 
having full words.

Since Red is related to REBOL, prin and print seem natural choices.
 - I agree.

like having full words
 - do words like REFORM not also violate that rule?

reform
 is a valid english word, no?

;-)

but in REBOL, it is a short for REDUCE-FORM.

Yeah, I know. We will use the same words in Red for maintaining compatibility 
with REBOL. I wish we had stricter rules for naming, but I guess 
that it won't hold in practice.

I think I would just be annoyed that Red tries to "fix" the wording 
of a REBOL function, as it means that you need some kind of alias 
table or must fix scripts or remember two sets of functions in your 
head.

I guess it's too soon for int64, isn't it?

Agreed, and I plan to keep Red as compatible as possible with REBOL 
wrt the syntax, but Red/System, as a dialect, can be a bit different.

int64: too soon yes, adding support for it would break all the current 
integer math code in backends, so not a trivial task. I have not 
planned to support it in this first Red/System version but add it 
only in the v2 (the rewrite in Red). OTOH, if we hit some wall in 
supporting an important feature or binding, I might reconsider that.

It should be possible though, to support it for bindings, but without 
any math operations.

it is used in iMagick. It would be fine without math.

I think it can be simulated with struct but I don§t know how difficult 
it is to implement it just without math.

It would take 2-3 days probably.

But I don't want to delay the work on Red compiler anymore, I should 
have started around new year, and I'm still on Red/System...

I must invest which routines are affected, but I think it's not a 
big priority like the float.

What about enums? What is the best way how to work with them in Red/System?

No plan for enums for now. You can use defines instead.

that would be quite a lot defines: https://gist.github.com/1683212

What about adding #enum into the loader?

I would like enumeration constants to be first class. Possibly integrated 
with a symbol type

no refinements support in Red/System, that will come in Red only.

 - just curious - isn't such a feature still a valid entry for future 
 Red/System enhancements? It is still in 19.7. section - should be 
 updated in doc as a dismissed feature then ...

Regarding PRINT, I would suggest simply defining a PRINT-LINE as 
an alternative to PRINT [LF}. There already is one in the C library 
binding, but it just prints a simple string