World: r4wp

Believe it or not, that was back in 2005!

(you can try resizing too)

Yeah, it was weird that it was called R# in 2005 and wasn't a .NET 
language (iirc).

Very cool Doc.

Actually, it was a private joke at Softinnov to call it like that, 
it was meant to be a project code name, not the language final name.

cant run it now. but if you can make console pleasant, the better. 
r3 experience is terrible for me. What i like about it though, is 
some commands - help, docs, why?, chat, bugs, news ...

I hope the console is something others can help with, so Doc can 
focus on internals.

Gregg: I wish too...but nobody contributed a better console for R3 
after hostkit release, I doubt it will be better for Red.

I think R3 being closed was a big part of that. I hope anyway.

And some smart person might be able to build a console that could 
be leveraged for both, or at least parts of it.

Also, among the active contributors to the half-closed R3, none of 
us really found the console to be that limiting. Perhaps we didn't 
have enough Windows developers who weren't already accustomed to 
the Windows console.

Good point Brian.

actually, r2 console was much better. r3 one was supposed to run 
as a real coneole, eg via com port, etc, but failed to deliver. Carl 
really tried to address it, I tried to help with googling some references, 
but Windows is weird in that regard ...

We were more focused on lower-level things. The console wasn't much 
of a priority, especially since we were intending to implement it 
in the R3-GUI, and that wasn't there yet.

brianh - imo noone can get acustomed to that weird windows black 
crap :-) R2 is better experience. Carl admitted, that he might return 
r2 console to r3 codebase, and let ppl to develop it further ...

I hate white background, but YMMV :)

brianh - try to locate related blog. carl asked for help - if you 
link view, he was not able to let the conole work in a real console 
way, or something lik that :-) Well, off topic here ...

Right.

brian, you dont mean it, right? do i have multiline, with win native 
console? do i have real hostory? do i have positioning, like r2 allowed? 
:-)

OK, back on Red. If we want to discuss console implementation, let's 
change groups.

For Red, if someone doesn't jump in and do it, Doc will have to. 
Then he has to decide how important it is to helping Red succeed. 
I think it is, and will also help set a foundation for a Red IDE. 
For that, I don't know if it will even help Doc if we write up things 
we like, or don't about various consoles. I think he has a good feel 
for what is needed.

Now, if we can get Doc enough funding, he may be able to direct some 
of it to people he can work with, which would be great, and we can 
set up bountys as well.

gregg, I contributed only 50 eur, as i am setting up photo studio. 
but thanks for reminder, will send in another 50 :-)

Every little bit helps. Thanks Petr!

Actually, I am trying to send 50 on a month basis. Now r3 gui project 
is temting too, but i would have to see the project outline, eg seeing, 
that cyphre will be paid to update the engine to use hw acceleration, 
etc. I would love View engine to be useable with Red too. I ca feel 
some excitement last few weeks, fort both r3 and red projects :-)

Gregg: I have already code for a R2-like console (as shown by Rsharp.exe), 
but anyway, if I can find someone willing to do it and skilled enough, 
I would be glad to delegate that part.

...I have already "C" code...

Yes, RSharp works well in the little test I did here (until I did 
PRINT MOLD SYSTEM/WORDS). :-)

I added a checklist for consoles and IDEs. Put suggestions there 
to gather ideas.

Gregg, that RSharp version was pretty complete, it was implementing 
something like 60-70% of R2 functions/natives/actions.

A partial system object was even present.

Yeah, I was surprised when REPEAT worked.

And nice line editing.

I have fixed the main issue in Red runtime for the REPL to work properly, 
now I just need to extend a bit the tokenizer (LOAD) to handle  blocks 
and a few more details before releasing the code. The current tokenizer 
is very crude, I will rework it in the next days.

Hi Doc,

@ Doc : Will the interpreter have included (some time in the future) 
some of the debug features planned for R3 (Hooks, stack ops, etc...) 
? That would be nice but it's just my wish list ;-)

@ Doc, Thanks a lot for this REPL implementation. this is welcome 
for newcomers I think.

Debugging features: sure, but maybe not the same as R3. I have a 
`stack` native in my notes to add, not sure what `hooks` refers to?

Red REPL preliminary release (be sure to read the commit log before 
trying it):

https://github.com/dockimbel/Red/commit/744bcb072e8f850bd7b9f1e778fe172446f29416

Just compile %tests/console.red and run it!

Reminder: error trapping is not yet implemented, so better type working 
code or you'll be quickly back to Windows console. ;-)

This is just a 4 days work, most of the code was implemented in the 
first 24h, the rest was spent debugging it and adding minor features.

I plan to continue working on it until 1st January to add Unicode 
support to the tokenizer and make the interpreter on par with the 
current compiler. I will then resume the work on object and ports.

I might also implement a cross-platform console if nobody shows up 
to do the job.

BTW, when you call functions from the console (FIRST, PROBE, LAST,...) 
defined in %boot.red, the interpreter will use the compiled version 
instead of evaluating their body....this is just to make Kaj even 
more confused. ;-)

I will also probably make a new major release, bumping the version 
to 0.4.0 when the REPL will be completed.

Hi Doc: Here is about the above Debug Hook mention. It is drawn from 
http://www.rebol.net/r3blogs/0011.html.Don't miss some interesting 
comments from the 16 then  posted.

Is this console only for Windows?

Currently yes, I thought making a ncurses-based one too, but my time 
was sucked out by bugfixing.

@Doc : Don'T miss the STACK function too.

Hm, I'll have to confiscate Natasja's laptop again, then