DevTopics

This is part 18 in a series of articles on obscure programming languages.

What is REBOL?

REBOL (Relative Expression Based Object Language) is a cross-platform data exchange language and dynamic programming language originally designed for network communications and distributed computing.  More recently, REBOL has been used to program client and server-side Internet applications, database applications, and multimedia applications.

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This is what I tweeted after being blown away by the movie Inception:

Inception is AMAZING! That rare combination of high-concept brain teaser with summer popcorn blockbuster.

And this tweet by Stas Miasnikou is one of the best explanations I’ve seen for the movie.  However, you must truly be a geek if this comment makes you LOL:

The main idea of "Inception": if you run a VM inside a VM inside a VM inside a VM, everything will be very slow

Here’s a clever way to pre-screen candidates: post the job description in C# code.  That’s what a company in Port Chester, New York did for a $80K-$100K .NET Developer position posted on CraigsList.  The job description starts as:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace CandidateSearchApp
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main( string[] args )
        {
            var candidateSearch = new CandidateSearch();

            foreach (Candidate candidate in candidateSearch.GetCandidates())
            {
                if (candidate.IsViable() && candidate.IsQualified())
                    candidate.SubmitResume();
            }
        }
    }

And the necessary qualifications are summarized as follows:

return
    canWriteCSharp
    && canWriteCPlusPlus
    && knowsOO
    && knowsInterop
    && knowsThreading
    && knowsEntity
    && knowsClientWCF
    && knowsLinq
    && knowsWinForms;

I bought a laptop in June 2008 with 64-bit Windows Vista installed.  At that time, Windows x64 was relatively new, so I encountered a few problems with incompatible hardware and software that required an upgrade to 64-bit drivers.

Now in August 2010, most of the incompatibilities have been solved as x64 has gone mainstream.  At the local Best Buy today, perhaps 90% of the full-featured laptops run 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.  This makes sense because most new laptops come with 4-8 GB RAM, and you must run 64-bit Windows to access more than 3GB RAM.

64-bit Benefits

Here are the key benefits of running 64-bit Windows instead of 32-bit:

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