Rebol: The Official Guide [With CDROM]

By John Blanton and Elan Goldman

It's easy to get intimate with certain programming languages and not keep a lookout for new and powerful ones on the horizon. REBOL: The Official Guide raises awareness of this fascinating new... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 007212279X
• ISBN13: 9780072122794
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 731 Pages
• Weight: 3.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Eat your heart out, Perl!

I did several working CGI scripts in less than a week after reading this book. If your server supports REBOL I bet you'll be switching from Perl to REBOL. The use of 'slashes' (or.../\/\/\/\/...abuse?) in the Perl language was giving me a headache even for simple tasks.Im also a fan of Carl Sassenrath's work, this guy wrote a TRULY multitasking operating system back in the 1984, that runs smoothly in a 7 mhz, 256k machine! (Amiga 1000). If this guy was able to accomplish that, Im very enthusiastic about what this revolutionary language can do for me! Im amazed by the way I can now manipulate my mail using easy, single line commands.And last, the engine takes around 300k and runs on more operating systems than you may be able to mention (including Linux and Windows of course)

The next stage in the evolution of Programming.

Rebol The Official Guide succeeds on many Levels:First and foremost, this is a thorough and mature tutorial for Rebol - which is probably the most significant advance in programming languages since LISP.Secondly the Authors illustrate the reflective, introspective, and self-composing attributes of Rebol, which are likely to advance the development of artificial intelligence to a new generation.And thirdly, this is a case study of Database Design, modernized to accommodate distributed processing between remote computers.The forward by Rebol's developer Carl Sassenrath, sets the tone here. The experienced programmer should abandon the procedural and architectural paradigms of older programming languages and be prepared for the experience of learning a true computer language.A new programmer should have a experience much more enlightening and rewarding than a comparable first experience in Basic.The reader who is serious about learning and applying Rebol professionally is urged to study this book sequentially, and to test the code examples interactively as is illustrated.The software engineer who values thoughtful design and strives to leave clients with a robust and flexible product will be be rewarded amply.This will be achieved through the revolutionary and productive design of Rebol itself, and also from the Author's lucid writings.Regardless of one's specialty or special objectives all functionality of Rebol can be learned here from the design of an on-line Video Database Management System. The tools that Elan Goldman develops with the reader's participation will prove invaluable in any application of Rebol.Beneath the surface of code and prose of the book is the revelation of a potential: Rebol's uniquely dynamic features allow an organic growth in productivity that is much different than the addition of code libraries and shared objects.As the pool of Rebol programmers grows - and this book should effectively contribute to that growth - the nature of computer programming itself will be changed for the good of all.Just one example: As a database programmer, I have often been confronted by the constraints enforced by the row/column paradigm that has evolved from Accounting principles and has not only influenced database development itself, but the nature of programming languages in general.Rebol's "human language" approach allows the programmer to leave that all behind and embrace true Artificial Intelligence.The book concludes with instructions on Dialecting. Another unique feature that allows the programmer to finish a project with maximum extendibility for both developer and client.This book get 5 stars and two thumbs up from me. Definitely a book that I intend to grow old with.

It's a REBOL-ution. Carl Sassenrath has done it again!

Forget Perl. Forget Java. This is it, guys! This book says it all.My worst programming nightmares are *over*. REBOL is what I have been waiting for. REBOL runs on 40 platforms with no modification needed and puts out complete functionality in less than 200KB. I'm continually amazed at how powerful this language is and the networking capabilities are amazing.This language is incredibly easy to learn because you can actually read it. The hard part? I am having a hard time getting my head around all of the great things it does. Incredibly robust.I cannot imagine an Engineer, worth his salt, not having this book.

Sassenrath/REBOL, Technical Genius

The REBOL-lution has begun! Carl Sassenrath has done it again. This is a whole new way of working and it works itself, it is so simple.

A manifesto for radical change disguised as a computer book

Most famous for his work on the Amiga, computer pioneer Carl Sassenrath has striven to give people the ability to unleash the power of computers. The REBOL internet messaging language is the result of 20 years of radically rethinking the assumptions behind computer languages. He has absorbed what what was useful from the disciplines of Structural Programming, Functional Programming, List Processing, and Object-Oriented Programming, pared away the unnecessary. In this time when commercial computer languages come on 2 or more CD's, the REBOL language, a full powered language that fits on a floppy disk. The user interface is spare and elegant like the language.In contrast, Goldman and Blanton's excellent book is massive, a 700-page tome filled with many examples and practical applications. REBOL is designed to facilitate communication, and will not allow differing operating systems to hinder its mission. The CD comes with versions of REBOL for many operating systems, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, BeOS, and of course the Amiga. You'll be required to reach into unfamiliar territory, but that's what happens when you follow the path of a pioneer.