Just Starting REBOL? Start Here
REBOL Quick Start: Part 1 starts with downloading the file, installation, and the first time you run it. You will see a setup screen where it requests Web information, and then the software will try to connect to the REBOL.com site.
I suggest that you start here. Go through the installation process1 and follow the tutorial. You will gain a good feel for the interface of the REBOL/View environment. You will understand why this is such an interesting language to look into.
This tutorial is divided into four parts. Besides exploring the environment, you also get to look at and modify some REBOL scripts, including looking at the different parts of a REBOL script. You will then see how people write REBOL scripts and you will write a few of your own.
1One thing that is not apparent in the REBOL tutorials and documentation is the installation process. Traditionally, someone with an administrative account installs software and then non-administrative users can use the software. REBOL, however, seems to expect that all users are administrators.
If you are using an administrative account for your regular use of the computer, you are already in trouble. You need to use a non-administrative account except when you are doing administrative tasks. These tasks include installing updates, installing or uninstalling new software, setting up networks, adding or removing user accounts, or changing system settings. Examples of non-administrative tasks include typing documents, using spreadsheets, checking e-mail, or using your Web browser. Using REBOL to write, test, and run scripts is generally going to be a non-administrative task, and that is why REBOL’s installation must be changed and soon.
technorati tags:REBOL
Blogged with Flock
It looks like part 5 is now up and part 6 is promised soon.
lnxwalt
Saturday, 2007-February-03
[...] starts out with a REBOL script, the same one used in Quick Start part 1. We remove some of the program code, the function that resizes the clock when you click and drag a [...]
REBOL Quick Start, Part Two « LAMPJR: LAMP + Java + Ruby, REXX, REBOL, etc
Monday, 2007-February-05
Hey, I just wanted to point out that you don’t need admin privileges to run Rebol. On Windows, you can just run from the downloaded copy of view.exe and it seems to chug along quite happily.
It’s been a while since I did a local-user-only install on Linux, but I don’t recall having to do much more than extracting to a subdirectory and running my copy of rebol directly from xterm.
Brian Wisti
Friday, 2007-March-09
@Brian:
When you do a non-administrator Windows installation, Rebol runs with its information stored in a hidden folder in your profile without setting any registry keys (because those obviously take admin rights), so the *.r file association isn’t made.
On Linux, the procedure is exactly as you describe.
In either of the two operating systems, installation should have the option of being a true "system installation" (similar to Perl, Python, REXX, or nearly any other language), which enables any necessary system settings and makes the language available to any system users. It should also put a link or shortcut in the user’s "My Documents" or ~/Documents directory, to enable access to the Rebol storage by users—I end up doing this myself, so that I have access to the demo scripts. I should not have to do so—it should be automatic.
At one time, REBOL was one of the languages I was considering teaching my nephews. After watching other computer-savvy youngsters get frustrated by this bizarre "installation" and its effects, I decided to choose another language.
In a way, it is something like the old StarOffice 5.x office suite. Everything was pushed into its own constraining little "desktop", instead of being visible in the normal user-accessed parts of the system. Once they got rid of that, StarOffice/OpenOffice really took off. I am hoping that RT will do something similar to help Rebol take off.
Right now, RT is trying to build up some momentum behind the 3.0 release of the language. I believe that fixing this installation would be a big help toward making the software usable by more users.
lnxwalt
Friday, 2007-March-09