World: r4wp

I create little Rebol/Services from time to time.  Would be nice 
to have a spec that makes it quick and easy.

SDL: I just tried an app using it with OSX. That's not really end-user 
friendly. Needs to be totally self-contained. No config etc. just 
download and start.

I still have some rebol services stuff in production, and always 
had high hopes for it. And while I would like a self-contained, dialected 
model, I also want to be able to easily use 0MQ as a transport and 
REST interfaces to map over services.

Is there any documentation on how to make an error!

There's this - https://github.com/rebol/r3/blob/master/src/mezz/base-funcs.r

A simple error is still easy:
>> probe make error! "this is an error"
make error! [
    code: 800
    type: 'User
    id: 'message
    arg1: "this is an error"
    arg2: none
    arg3: none
    near: none
    where: none
]

Ok, I kept getting an error message when I tried it.

I'm trying to understand network schemes again, after a 3 year gap.

I've updated the time scheme and uploaded it to github here https://github.com/gchiu/Rebol3/blob/master/protocols/prot-time.r

As you can see, there's no error handling yet .. I thought there 
was a field in the scheme object to store errors but I've lost it.

Pavel used a read/lines to format the date in local date format. 
 I replaced that with write options

So, you can 

read time://time.nist.gov to get the date

or

write time://time.nist.gov [ GMT }

to get the date back in GMT.

We kept the http-error from Gab's prot-http.r until we figure out 
what to do about errors

Read/Write appears to be awkward -- is there any planned replacement 
for read/custom?  I'd suggest that read/args (or read/params) would 
make more sense than write in the above example...

Well, currently 'read doesn't have a custom refinement.  But I guess 
that can be added and then we can use that.

I know, I'm just hoping there will be...

But why would you want to diverge from R2's read/custom in favour 
of read/args?

Could be quite elegant used alongside codecs.

Args (params, whatever) is more specific. read/custom is a bit woolly.

where is 'read defined?

Just searching the sources now ...

https://github.com/rebol/r3/blob/master/src/boot/actions.r

So, is it just a case of adding the /args or whatever refinement 
there?

Should get some concensus on this as it will affect all the schemes, 
and may need a little rewriting of the http scheme which uses write 
to pass options

I certainly see a read/args as being quite distinct in purpose from 
write.  I use it with my sandbox scheme (http://reb4.me/r/wrt) to 
filter directory contents.


 read/custom wrt://system/ [thru %.r] ; shows only rebol scripts in 
 this folder
	write wrt://system/ [thru %.r] ; means something else entirely

On the http scheme, it could be the difference between adding a query 
string to a GET request (read/custom), and adding post data on a 
POST/PUT request (write).

with read you're expecting some content back, with write, you're 
not

Should we even use write in the http scheme?

I'm appreciative of a return value from write. For example, on a 
hypothetical Twitter scheme, write twitter:// "My Tweet" would return 
the new tweet id.

Similarly most http write operations return a value of some kind.

so, the http scheme should stick to read for sync ops

I see read/get as synonymous, write/post or put, delete/delete.

and HEAD ?

info?

the thing is that GET sends information and gets something back. 
 Same as POST.  What's the difference?

Intent.

Content.

But are we expecting the casual user to understand this?

I believe it's more consistent.

A casual user of http, for sure : )

So, if you're reading a HTTP form, you can either use GET or POST 
 ....

So, what is the user supposed to do ... use READ or WRITE ?

GET/READ, POST/WRITE.

Sounds like duplication

the http scheme author has to then support both methods of doing 
the same thing

Not at all. Particularly if you consider the HTML form -- GET sends 
parameters in the URL, POST sends parameters in the body. And consider 
the usage of each: GET is usually some type of search/filter facility, 
POST is sending data to be stored.

Well, I usually use POST to collect a token to allow me to proceed 
on the site

People don't like sending passwords in the URL

For a developer, the intent is far clearer.

	read/custom http://google.com[q "Gordon Strachan"]

 write http://my-site.com[title "A Blog Post" content "Today I..."]

It would be simpler if we just used 

GET and POST instead of read/write