I am a French geologist, currently taking a 180 degree sharp curve in my professional life.
After ca. 30 years of practicing geology and mining exploration worldwide, I just went back to university in Bordeaux, to study computer science (https://dept-info.labri.fr/adsillh/ is the cursus I'm attending).
I've been coding with *Basic languages since 1983, with C (occasionally) since 1990, and I saw the Light when I started coding in Rebol 2 around 2001 or 2002. I've been working with plenty of other languages, not worth mentioning.
GNU/Linux user since 1999, exclusive GNU/Linux user since 2005, currently Debian and Devuan are giving life to most of my computers.
My Rebol experience has always been interrupted: I started with great enthusiasm and productivity; then in 2007 I wanted to subcontract the development of a tool for geologists and I wished it would be developed in Rebol: but the subcontractor didn't want, because Rebol wasn't open source software... so they (and I) switched to python for a while. Then on 12/12/12, full of Hope, I started Rebolling again intensively, putting much hope on the Red adventure. Today, whenever I have some quick code to do, Rebol2 comes as THE solution.
Most of what I (quite messily) coded is on my github:
So the good news is that you have a long attention span. I've bumped you to "regular" status, so you can write about semi-off-topic things in Lounge if you like...which will be the replacement for chat.
Red was something I put hopes in circa 2013, with particular interest in the idea of using the same basic code constructs in a C-like systems language as in a high-level language. It's still a solid idea, but they have been very deep into trying to develop the cross-platform GUI aspect. Yet they've completely skipped over plugging the foundational design holes that were so blatant and numerous in the R3-Alpha issues tracker...those issues had driven most reasonable people to lose hope, eventually.
Ren-C has played the long game of trying to make the language itself lock together tightly. And I think that has been paying off, and especially right now it seems many longstanding issues are starting to click into place.
But due to being realistic about what can and can't be done with a skeleton crew, I've taken being the distributor of .EXE files off the table. That day may come, but if it does, it will come after a online run-in-the-web as Webassembly interpreter that can frictionlessly teach and be tried by everyone.
Feel free to post anything that you want to talk about, or comment a thought on anything you find here. I'll take a look over your GitHub, and see if anything catches my attention to remark on.
Sure. Those chats are fun, but having a structured conversation, especially on long-term, is just a pain, if not impossible.
I'm personally in favor of discussions lists over good old emails, I'm not too much into forums, but why not, let's see if it goes well.
I've bumped you to "regular" status, so you can write about semi-off-topic things in