World: r4wp

I was thinking you would be happy with that move. As the newcomers 
keep showing up on Red, it's time to make it closer to the final 
form.

Also, once the encapped version will be done for all supported platforms, 
we need to set up a continuous integration chain, with tests and 
builds automated. That will take some time to get done properly, 
so better start now.

Yes, it's a great step. I think the console is important as well, 
so once I get some other things done, we will talk about doc extraction 
and mezzanines in support of that.

Right, we'll work on those tasks as planned during August.

Encapped Red seems cool, if it's what I think, it is. To have a script 
included and executed at launch, so it's all in one file?


I wonder, what it takes to do that in World. Probably easy enough, 
just need to figure it out.

Geomol: I think encapped Red means that you can compile Red programs 
from the command prompt instead of having to launch Rebol2 and then 
compile the Red program.

Geomol, what is encapped is the Red toolchain, it adds no new features 
to the toolchain itself except removing the need to run it from a 
Rebol2 console.

It is possible right now to include an external file in the executable.

Oh, Bo was faster. :-)

Only by 44 seconds according to my AltME. :-)

I'd be interested to know how Doc got around the problems I was seeing 
him have with the Rebol2 encapper.  He is a digital magician!

Bo: The issue I had to fight with in my hotel room was just that 
my own prebol replacement lib was adding  an extra layer of MOLDing 
to the input source, because of the workarounds to avoid the #include 
(and others) directive collisions. This resulted in disabling some 
parts of the code leading to  odd runtime errors. I couldn't focus 
enough on it to see it that night because I was too exhausted and 
wanted to listen to the discussion at the same time. :-) (For others: 
my room was a kind of meeting point in the hotel ;-)).


To debug that, I reproduced the preprocessing changes step by step 
in a console until I located the "disabled" parts of the code, once 
I PROBEd those parts in the console, the cause was clear and the 
fix easy.

This is the encap script I'm using:

Rebol [ ]

#include %encap-paths.r
#include %red-system/utils/encap-fs.r
do #include-string %.cache.efs
do #include-string %red-encap.r

Also, to be able to see any output in DOS console from an encapped 
Rebol app, I needed to change a flag in the executable file (sub-system: 
`console` instead of `GUI`).

you can also set an attribute in the header for it to be generated 
as a console app.

Really? I missed that in the docs.

Oh, might be the -c option for enabling the CGI mode, is that the 
one?

Hum, no, doesn't seem to work for DOS console.

similar, I think you just need to add cgi in the encap header attribute

its been a very long time (7 years) and I think its an undocumented 
feature he added just for me.  :-)

CGI option in header does not work for DOS it seems. The only way 
is to set it a flag manually in the exe.

argh... can't remember the flag it needed. memory escapes me.

but its definitely there.

Doc - does encapper means, that we don't need to use R2 console anymore, 
and that Red distro will contain red executable, which will be able 
to compile and run the scripts?

Only if you don't want to use "cutting edge" versions from github:)

I think that the far future plane is to have Red be made in Red.. 
now it's a little bit fake:) Probably to make it easier for potencial 
newcommeres.

yes, I expect it still being dependent upon R2. What I would do probably, 
is to add R2 for various systems directly into Git repo, I mean - 
executables, and make it - invisible to the user ...

ok, posted to FB ...

Thanks for the insight into how you got around that problem, Doc!

Pekr: answer is yes to your above question. But I will wait after 
the 0.3.3 release to add a Red binary to the repo and a build script 
to encap the Red compiler. Also I need to update documentation and 
see with Andreas how we can set up automated builds for each new 
commits.

I forgot that I also need to merge Red and Red/System compiler front-ends, 
so they will be some work for that future release with binary Red. 
I will probably bump the version number to 0.4.0 for that future 
release.

Oldes: you're right, but the encapped Red is just a convenience to 
make it easier to try and use for anyone as we're getting closer 
to a Red beta.

Doc, I admire your consistent work and progress!

Yes, me too.

Doc - Red beta? :-) Half of features are still missing, I would like 
us getting into alpha in few months :-)

Pekr - Every day is a day closer to Red beta.

I don't think he said he was close to a Red beta, but closer.

Depends on what you compare with. Compared to most languages, Red 
has lots of extra features. If you want to compare with REBOL, then 
a lot is missing from Red, but also a lot of Red features are missing 
from REBOL

As for me, Alpha means - feature complete, just instable imo, while 
still tweaks here or there might appear. And beta means - 100% feature 
complete, freezed, just bugfixes ...

Red doesn't fit that. It's not feature complete, but it's stable

And Red is missing a lot - objects, IO, networking, parse, and no, 
having R/S libraries for such purpose available does not make it 
any more feature complete. R/S is a different language and should 
be treated as that ...

No objections towards Red stability ....

What, more features don't make it more feature complete?

No, because I am not interested to use R/S, unless necessary.

In almost all my programs, I have a mix of Red and Red/System, very 
tightly integrated. It's a mistake to regard them as separate languages

And Doc himself claims from very beginning, that R/S is mostly for 
integrators, as you are. Most ppl will look into Red, and find such 
features missing. I am really not interested into some Curl binding, 
I want Rebol level ports, etc. based networking. So our milleage 
might vary ...

Yes, this is something we found out along the way. Red/System is 
very powerful

I have nothing against R/S, in fact - I am liking the overall Red 
architecture. I somehow can't explain it, dunno. Simply put - I worry, 
that basing my programs upon some already existing bindings is risky, 
as Red will provide its own solution later, which will make it incompatible 
imo ...

You will keep making those thought mistakes as long as you don't 
start programming

It is kind of Osbourne syndrom with me - waiting for native Red implementation, 
instead of using what is available ... strange feeling ...