"More than just a tool."

Since its first release, I estimate that more than 250,000
people have tried REBOL.  More than 110,000 have downloaded it
from REBOL.com, and it's also available on many other, larger
web sites and on various CD-ROMs. In addition, I've received
tens of thousands of emails from enthusiastic new users.  And,
perhaps even more gratifying, most people I meet these days have
at least heard of REBOL.

All of this is a good start.  REBOL/Core is a great tool.  And,
if that's all you want, then there you have it: REBOL.  However,
I've always intended REBOL to be more than just a "tool".  REBOL
is a revolution.  A revolution not just of "scripting", but of
thought, style, content, and computing.

So far, you've participated in the first stage of the
revolution. That stage was centered around the core language and
its environment. If you're like me, you've enjoyed writing
dates, times, email, urls, money, tuples, and other datatypes in
a manner that is familiar to us as humans.  Perhaps you've also
found the built-in network protocols useful and experienced some
of the power that comes from polymorphic function-based
programming with refinements.

Now is the time for the second stage: REBOL/View.  This stage is
all about making REBOL useful and exciting for everyone else. In
other words, more than just programmers and scripters should
benefit from REBOL. For every scripter there are at least 100
other people who would enjoy creating or viewing visual content
with REBOL.

REBOL/View unites a clean method of graphical layering,
compositing, and processing with the expressive leverage of
dialecting.  With it you create content and applications with as
few lines as you accomplish other REBOL tasks such as networking.
The GUI dialect allows your code to be descriptive and easy to
read. In fact, it's much easier and more readable than HTML.

When you combine this GUI with REBOL networking, you get a
result that I enjoy calling the "World Wide Reb". Imagine a
network where fully interactive graphical applications download
into your system in just seconds.  These REBOL "smart-client"
applications run on your local system, but access the network
whenever necessary to fetch other parts of the application or
communicate back to various servers or other clients. So, when
you click on a button, something happens... not just in a few
minutes or seconds, but immediately.

That seems more like the kind of technology that's worthy of a
revolution.  Don't get me wrong... The web is great for static,
linear, document types of content.  That's a necessity that will
be around for a long time.  But, I dream about the year 2005 and
believe that our network experience will be much different by
then.  I'm convinced that once you have had the chance to try
REBOL/View, you'll agree with me.

"When" you ask?  I've got the first draft design complete, and
Jim has written the C-based graphical layering system.  Over the
last week I've added the parse block capability necessary to
make dialects easier to write, and the first GUI dialect is now
up and drawing screens.  (Nice looking screens they are too.) My
plan is to release a beta by mid-January to those of you who
want to test drive it.  I will provide a number of interesting
example scripts that I guarantee will be immediately useful to
you.

There is a bonus for those of you who like technical challenges.
REBOL/View will include its GUI dialect source code. That gives
you the power to enhance the GUI as well as create your own custom
GUI dialect, say for interactive TV, kiosks, games, or whatever.

Yes, the year 2000 has finally arrived.  It seems like a fitting
time for a revolution, don't you think?

Have a happy and REBOLlious 2000,

Carl Sassenrath
REBOL Creator & Founder
Chairman & CEO

PS: I'd like to also thank all of you who have helped support
the REBOL cause and who have taken the time to share your
knowledge and insights of REBOL with others on this list.
Thank you so much.