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Who am I? Why am I here? |
Date written: February 4, 2015
Date revised: November 14, 2016
Date reviewed: November 14, 2016
This explains what this site is and why it is here.
This site was originally created for an audience of one person, and then the focus moved to a small audience of programmers who soon would have a need to know REBOL. Originally, it was an instructional aid for making a transition from the COBOL programming language to REBOL, written by the very person who had the need for the instructional aid. Therefore, the one important point you must keep in mind is that the author does not necessarily know what he is doing. Any code you find here does work, but it might not be the real REBOL way of doing things.
Programming is getting more complicated as we try to do more things with computers. Computer languages have evolved on a pathway up from machine language and assembler language. COBOL, an alleged third-generation language, has similarities to assembler, in that data is defined in one area and executable instructions in another.
If problems are evolving on one path and the languages to solve them are evolving on another path, could those paths diverge to a point where is is hard to solve the problems with the existing tools, or where it is hard to conceive solutions when our tools lead us to think a certain way (the "if the only tool I have is a hammer" phenomenon)? In addition, what happens if the tool you have was created in a day when problems were of a certian type (fixed-format "unit-record" data) but the problems you now are solving are not like that?
REBOL is a programming language that expresses solutions differently, and is used for solving problems different from COBOL problems. That means that learning REBOL can be a bit of a shock to the system. This small web site is an aid to evolving away from COBOL, for those who have that need.
Culture change is difficult.