There you have it. Poll for the first new MorphZone Staff suggested bounty in a while. This bounty will be the first "Carrot Dangle" for the MOS Team. Do not think this is an idea to "hurry" 1.5, but more to simply get ARexx working correctly for new users.

Let it be known that working on the ARexx implimentation is boring tedious work. I have at least $100 in the general fund already ready (already) to start this bounty with (and maybe more, thanks to BugeyeD). The only real requirement is that it gets finished and released (seperately, or as part of a 1.4.5678 release, or whatever it takes to get it into the users hands).

Well, there you have it. The spiel from Targhan, completely un-approved by the MorphOS Team. Completely and absolutely as a surprise to CISC who probably feared this day would come. If the bounty is unsuccessful, we will use the funds to kidnap CISC's stuffed animal collection to hold until he changes his mind...

ARexx is unuseful and it doesn't help in Firefox porting.

My vote is naturally "Oh, HELL YEAH!" (but you'll NEVER get my stuffed animal collection!!!11)... ;)


- CISC

Shouldn't it just be a Rexx port? Are there copyright issues involved in using ARexx? Could we use Rexx and make it ARexx-compatible and call it "MRexx?"

Quote:

No, there's no such thing as a copyright on a name (there's however trademarks, but no such thing applies for ARexx, and neither would it really be a problem in this case).

My work (which btw is already partially included in MorphOS) is based on reverse-engineering of the original ARexx, which is legal here (luckily).

Quote:

You could do what was done for AROS; take an existing interpreter (Regina) and extend it to be compatible with ARexx, however this means that no existing programs with ARexx ports will work (since these are tied to deep intrinsics in rexxsyslib.library), which makes it pretty much pointless for MorphOS...


- CISC

Does any of the latest MorphOS apps support rexx? Does Ambient?

if its very close nearing completition and won't take Cisc too many sleepless nights.. hey why not.

It was once stated by the MOS-team that a bounty for MOS1.5 is not possible.. are we now dancing on the edge of a fence when starting to pay for the MorphOS-components separately?


off topic note, Tokai eat your heart out. I just passed you on forumposts with this one

I'm all for it as well. Lets get it done at last!!

Y E A H ! Native ARexx and RxMUI (*evilgrin*) is quite high on my wishlist !

>Does any of the latest MorphOS apps support rexx? Does Ambient?

Of course yes. Ambient has an ARexx port that actually works; any MUI apps accepts at least the standard MUI set of ARexx commands and, imho, any MorphOS app has its own commands (see ShowGirl f.e.).

CISC says:

Quote:

Okay, I am all for the bounty then. Voted "hell, yeah."

"on the fringes"... Hmm.. Well, I don't know. CISC, was this still planned for 1.5?

I'm not even going to venture a guess on any timeline involving 1.5. I can't say for sure if the core team will allow this or not either. However, there is no reason we cannot lobby the team for some projects here and there.

(If nothing else, it's something to talk about, no?)

I think it would be cool if Cisc worked on an ARexx port... but on the other hand, shouldn't we be looking forward... and maybe we should start a bounty to get a more complete Scripting language? Has Python or Ruby been ported Yet?

@katos1

While I feel your desire for a more modern scripting language, you will not find one more "complete" than ARexx. Or, should I say more "completely integrated?"

If ARexx wasn't so embedded into everything -- even brand new applications -- I might be tempted to start screaming for RUBY myself. Ruby looks awesome, but everything has an ARexx port. It's easily overlooked at how ARexx is used as an extensive interprocess communications protocol.

When we look foreward, we need to also think about how things currently work and how available (or more appropriately not available) those old AmigaOS3.5/3.9 CD's will be in the future. The bottom line here is that we cannot move foreward until the foundation is set. For MorphOS, ARexx is part of that foundation. Until that scripting language, specifically, is re-implemented--the OS is quite literately chained to the past.

In the future, I would love to see Ruby, Python, REBOL, and even some of the newer implimentations of COBOL ported over.

Targhan

Well I have to agree with Katos here. Although I think that your suggested bounties are needed, they are not a priority for MOS as you can get Installer, Arexx, and Amiguide from Aminet or Amiga os 3.9 cd. (And yes I know its not good to be dependent on that) We already have some elements of Python and if we had full Python implementation it allows ports of things such as Freevo which I feel is a worthy port for MOS..

magnetic

These three bounties are the best bounties ever (but khtml and tcp/ip).

ARexx is simply one of the hearts of Amiga: it let you do stuff that are not possible in other os. It could be done in other language too, but ARexx is so simple and nice, that makes ipc very easy for the absolut beginner too. Really, it is something you can't live without.

Installer: devs are starting to think it is not present and they are not writing installer scripts; while it works for stupid things like mrmazinga, it makes life very hard for other stuff. You must be sure an installer is installed (:p)!

AmigaGuide is simply the way we write docs; I would like to have a html docs stuff; let's wait marcik :) Anyway I really hate those ugly gadtools buttons around :)

@magnetic

Installer would be a "bonus," but ARexx is essential. Without it, all the python support in the world is simply meaningless. You, I, and a good portion of the people with an Amiga history know to look for a 68k file; however, a new user doesn't know what arexx is, and would simply know that YAM doesn't have it's extra features, their downloads for Ibrowse aren't working, and AmIRC doesn't have the functionality that is advertised.

Besides, I'm willing to bet that the lack of a future for ARexx in OS4 became the deciding factor for a number of people to go the "Blue" way...

Alfie/Targh

4gr33d

Arexx is very important and its good to have native, and I'm aware of its power as a language so you dont have to sell me on it!

However, installer is no big deal. My main concern is diverting $100 in funds that can go towards other bounties/potential projects.


magnetic

@Targhan

Yes, I can understand that Arexx is embedded in everthing Amiga... but I can't help but think that we need to be looking forward. Well at least the Dev Team needs to be looking forward... maybe they could farm out the development of parts of the OS that relate to legacy applications ( not that Arexx cannot be used in the future...)
Anyways I am just thinking out loud... I want the best for Mos, but I am not sure that continuing to rely on the old foundation is the safest way forward... If we intend to build a larger house, it might be time to pour a stronger foundation? Is anyone still thinking about what the Qbox could be?
or is that thought restricted to Laire?

Yes, I can agree that at the present time Arexx is essential... I joined the "Blue" persuasion because it is simply Better...nuff said.
@Targhan... don't take my comments as being critical... I am in favour of any enhancements to the OS that I have chosen... I just like to air my opinion sometimes...Keep up the good work!!!

Wouldn't it be better with a poll for 1.5?

But as an outsider with no Amiga background I don't even know what Arexx is. I mean I personally think altivec support is more intressting.

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/rexx/

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/05/26/rexx.html

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/24/0034224&tid=156&tid=136&tid=8

And alfie forgot to add the most important
link for Rexx in the amiga world:

http://alfie.altervista.org/

> But as an outsider with no Amiga background I don't even
> know what Arexx is. I mean I personally think altivec
> support is more intressting.

Interesting is, how could come to an opinion, although you have no clue what this is about.

@katos1

Don't worry, I was just expressing my thoughts on the matter. In the future we do need support for other languages; I just don't envision anything growing to the level ARexx has for ipc. Only Unix/Linux comes close, and even then--it's not as complete as the way MorphOS/Amiga uses ARexx. (I'm not counting certain command line applications like sed or awk.)

@robjoh
If I could put up a bounty for 1.5, I would. I'm going to have enough of a time convincing those in power to let this bounty fly. Altivec support is probably out of the question for the bounty system, since I *know* it will be part of 1.5.

@Wishmaster

I think my bad English failed me again...

I meant that if I have understand this right Arexx will be a part of 1.5? If not please don't kill me :)

So is it not better to get a bounty going for the whole product, I mean 1.5 would defently (sp?) kill al rumors that MorphOS is dead.

@Targhan

I know that altivec is a part of 1.5 that what why I thought it was more intressting to get 1.5 out.

@alfie

Thanks for the links, it atleast gave me some info. As rexx always been big in Amiga land?



[ Edited by robjoh on 2006/1/7 11:14 ]