Guest post by The CMS that builds the Syllable websites was used on Syllable Server so far, but has now been ported to Syllable Desktop. This was done by porting it to REBOL 3. This screenshot shows Desktop building its own website in static batch mode and synchronising it with Amazon S3. This screenshot shows the Webster browser previewing the built site as local files. Building the websites on Syllable Server is around 35% faster with REBOL 3 than with REBOL 2. A few longstanding problems in the Russian website and Syllable documentation were fixed because REBOL 3 now understands Unicode.
The CMS now runs on both REBOL3 and REBOL2. Due to the redesign of the language, there are some incompatibilities between them. Fortunately, REBOL is used to dealing with different languages, because it is its own meta language. REBOL3 and REBOL2 are effectively two dialects of the same language. Forward compatibility facilities have been added to recent releases of REBOL2, so that it has some of the same features as REBOL3. Other differences have been neutralised in the CMS by a small set of compatibility functions.
The Syllable websites are currently static sites, hosted on the Amazon S3 cloud. The CMS can also run as a dynamic platform. For example, the Try REBOL website runs on Syllable Server as a dynamic web app in the same processes as the Cheyenne web server. Because Cheyenne runs on REBOL2 it is currently not available on Syllable Desktop, but something halfway could be done there since the CMS also has a CGI interface. Once the CGI code of the CMS is ported to REBOL3, as well, it could run in CGI mode on one of the web servers available for Syllable Desktop.
I have questions related to syllable (not directly cms, or rebol).
In syllable-forum kaj wrote yesterday:
” The port of the Syllable Desktop GUI to Syllable Server is currently stalled, because the developer left.”
As far as I know, Vanders was working on that. Does that mean, that Vanders left?
If Vanders left, it would be very interesting if osnews could take an interview with Vanders, just like they did after Vanders forked syllable from atheos.
It would be interesting to know his reasons and opinions.
Vanders commented on the forum just this week. He’s still hosting much of the web infrastructure, but other than that, he hasn’t been active since early this year.
I suppose when someone has lost interest in something, that includes giving interviews about it.
But how does this advance Syllable as a desktop?
How would an extra application, for a popular activity, especially designed for Syllable, not help Syllable Desktop?
Is there a reason to think that was (or ought to have been) the primary goal?
“The CMS that builds the Syllable websites was used on Syllable Server so far, but has now been ported to Syllable Desktop.”
I would say that it is inferred from that statement.
This is getting to splitting hairs, but if you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth: Yes, I consider it obvious that an extra app for Syllable Desktop advances Syllable Desktop. If that hadn’t been the goal, I wouldn’t have made the effort to port it. But it’s an application, so if you want to talk about the Syllable desktop in general, it’s also obvious that an app is not a change to the desktop proper. So the primary goal was the app on the desktop, not the desktop itself.
Edited 2010-12-13 16:59 UTC
That statement tells us precisely 2 things: that the Syllable CMS used to run only on the Syllable Server OS, and that it now runs on the Syllable Desktop OS. I suppose you could reasonably infer from the statement that someone thought there was a benefit to porting the CMS – but it’s a stretch to conclude that it was done for some loftier goal of advancing the platform as a whole.
I do realize that that’s a fairly minor distinction, but I’m stressing it because (at least to my eyes) the grandfather post looks a criticism of this effort on the grounds that it *doesn’t* advance the platform as a whole – which I think is silly. An action can still be beneficial, even it’s not done specifically/solely for “the common good”.