REBOL
REBOL (pronounced "reble") was designed over a 20 year period by Carl Sassenrath, the system architect responsible for the first multitasking multimedia platform, the Commodore Amiga OS. In 1997, REBOL was released for 3 operating systems to a small group of users. Today REBOL runs on more than 40 OS platforms and has grown to reach more than 1,000,000 users.
The ultimate goal of REBOL is to provide a new architecture for how information is stored, exchanged, and processed between all devices connected over the Internet. Unlike other approaches that require tens of megabytes of code, layers upon layers of complexity that run on only a single platform, REBOL is small, portable, and easy to manage.
From a language perspective, REBOL is highly reflective and promotes functional-style scripting. The syntax and features bear similarites to Scheme, Forth and Logo. REBOL is built on a Forth-like stack engine and is quite fast for many operations. REBOL does not implement tail recursion or continuations.
The following features are part of the base language (approx. 200 Kb interpreter):
- Machine independence: Programs run on more than 40 platforms without modification.
- Integrated Networking: REBOL comes with built-in support for HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP, APOP, IMAP, NNTP, Finger, Daytime and others. No includes, imports, or special libraries are needed.
- Built-in Datatypes: In addition to common types (string, integer, etc.) REBOL can express money, times, dates, words, tags, email, logic, lists, hashes, tuples, XY pairs, and many other datatypes. These are built-in. No other REBOL modules or libraries are required.
- Domain Specific Dialecting: Create sub-languages that provide you with extra leverage/productivity by expressing your solutions in terms that are directly mapped to the problem domain.
- Multi-level Sandboxes: Several levels of operational security are built-in.
- Parsing: A parser dialect provides a direct method of grammar specification for dialecting as well as for pattern matching. REBOL has special functions for parsing XML and other forms of markup.
Commercial versions of REBOL include features such as a GUI (a dialect-controlled graphics compositing engine), a distributed file-sharing system, and interfaces to native code libraries and standard databases.
Visit REBOL.com for more information.
- Developer: Carl Sassenrath
- Contact:
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REBOL Technologies
PO Box 1510
Ukiah, CA 95482
USA
Phone: (707) 485-0599
Email: carl.s at rebol.com
- Number of sites: 50+
- Number of users: over 500,000
- In use: since 1997
- Language: REBOL
- Compilers:N/A (script packaging/encapsulation product available, REBOL/Encap)
- Line count: 200 Kb for REBOL/Core interpreter. 400Kb for REBOL/View (GUI version)
- Availability: Core interpreter freely distributed for more than 40 platforms at
www.rebol.com.
- Related publications:
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James Esch,
The REBOL IOS Distributed Filesystem,
Dr. Dobb's Journal,
Sept 2002.
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Kurt Cagle,
When a Language Becomes a Platform,
New Architect Magazine,
April 2002.
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Martin Heller,
REBOL, Carl Sassenrath's "New" Language,
Byte Magazine,
Nov. 2000.
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Cameron Laird and Kathryn Soraiz,
REBOL Rolls Forward,
ITworld.com: Unix Insider,
Sept. 2000.
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Carl Sassenrath,
Inside the REBOL Scripting Language,
Dr. Dobb's Journal,
July 2000.
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Nora Mikes,
A REBOL Incursion,
LinuxWorld.com,
Oct. 1999.
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Carl Sassenrath,
REBOL Bots,
New Architect Magazine,
Sept. 1999.
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Derrick Story,
Programming Paradigms: The REBOL Language,
Dr. Dobb's Journal,
Aug. 27, 1999.
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Michael Swaine
Rebol and E-mail Services,
Dr. Dobb's Journal,
Aug. 27, 1999.