World: r4wp

Gregg, can't reproduce your console issue, here's the test code I'm 
using:

red>> foo: func [][print "1" exit print "2"]
== func [][print "1" exit print "2"]
red>> foo
1
red>>

Hmmm, neither can I now. Thanks for checking.

Uncaught exceptions in Red/System (THROW) currently won't stop execution 
and report an error when reaching global code, but would just resume 
from there. I wonder if this is really the best behavior for the 
user, or if an error shouldn't be forced... OTOH, there is no way 
currently to catch an exception at global code level, so if the behavior 
is changed to an error, it might result in users making wrapper functions 
to avoid the error and resume at global level ...

I guess I will probably keep it as is for now, we'll see when we'll 
have some way to catch exceptions manually at global level.

You could still check system/thrown though, correct? And if you wanted 
to catch them, you could just have a MAIN func?

Correct. Yes, it is possible to wrap all your global code in a MAIN 
func.

That should be comfrotable for C programmers, yes?

Even if not required.

Yep, C coder could feel easily at home. From what I've seen so far, 
people knowing C and Rebol can learn and use Red/System in a matter 
of hours. Even for pure C coders, learning Red/System should be trivial.

Trivial is never trivial, especially on computers...

UTF-8 encoding would be very welcome. My I/O frameworks are of little 
use without it

Red/System c-strings are UTF-8 compatible.

I mean my ongoing request for getting UTF-8 in routines

As I said above, that part is not implemented, it will be once the 
work on Red's I/O will begin.

Yes, you said you might speed it up if I have a big need for it, 
so I'm expressing my need

But someone could contribute string! <=> UTF-8 conversion routines 
in the meantime.

I'm afraid my short-term schedule is already full, I've kept postponing 
very important parts for months, I need to get them implemented now 
(shared libs, error!, typeset!, object!).

I think that those UTF-8 conversion routines would take at least 
two days of work to get implemented and debugged.    I'll see once 
I get shared libs done if I can afford them before working on the 
other urgent tasks.

It's just that I thought Unicode was already there. Most of my future 
work is blocked by it

Unicode support is there, but we don't have all the external encoders/decoders 
yet.

It's nice that you can get data in, but it's useless if you can't 
get it out

We have hardwired the stdout/stdin Unicode support because we don't 
yet have the I/O infrastructure for Red (ports and devices).

True, but I do have the infrastructure. Just can't really use it 
this way

Well, as I said, someone could contribute those UTF-8 conversion 
routines.

I think Peter already did some work on it as have Rudolf (meijeru).

I wanted to publish an article with examples on the birth of the 
interpreter and the porting of the bindings to Red, but if a simple 
READ WRITE example doesn't work, I think it's too early to talk about 
it

I will have a look at it once shared libs are done, that's the best 
I can do for now.

OK, but I can't imagine what I would do with shared libraries if 
I can't get string data out

Shared libraries are on the critical path to Android support for 
Red and I've delayed it way too much already.

Same thing: what would you do on Android if you can get data in, 
but not out?

It's worse than having no Unicode, then you can at least get out 
what you put in

For Android, java uses UTF-16, so the conversion from string! is 
(almost) trivial.

But it's not there yet, is it?

No, I will implement it when I'll need it, and I have a lot of other 
stuff to code for Android support before that.

Is it wise that Red won't work on other platforms before it works 
on Android?

The features currently implementd in Red are working.

Sure, but it's pretty useless like this

That's why it is called an alpha. ;-)

I was hoping a little more could be done, but I'll have to postpone 
a lot of work

I told you I will have a look at it once the shared libs will be 
done, just wait a few days more. If it's critical to you, you might 
want to contribute the required conversion routines?

I could, but I know very little of Unicode, so there would be a lot 
of overhead in getting up to speed

I have no idea how long it will take you to finish the shared libraries. 
It has been a backburner project for a long time

Not very long, I just kept it postponed since almost a year now, 
and it's getting on my way for Android support since a while, so 
I've scheduled it since a few weeks to get it done just after the 
interpreter is finished (Exit/Return support).

OK, that's fine. It sounded like data out support was of undetermined 
priority

The only "data out" support we need for now for building Red is the 
stdout support, and we have it since a while.

Red I/O full support is next on my list after the above mentioned 
tasks will be completed.

BTW, if you stick to Latin-1, you shouldn't have the need for any 
conversion?

Also, there might be a cheap way to achieve the conversion in the 
meantime using wsprintf() or similar function.

Hmm, it might not be enough, so you might want to have a look and 
maybe wrap libiconv:
http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/

For once, the API looks good and simple enough (4 functions to wrap).