Rebol 3, still alpha

Many mornings I begin in EeeBuntu linux on an Asus netbook and do
  cd rebol3
  ./r3
  upgrade
  chat
  n
first to see if there is another release of the alpha and then to check for new posts to the Rebol3 chat server.

It is not easy to form an opinion.  A rebol wiki, web pages and a text chat server appear to have become an immense anchor dragging in mud, impeding the entry of  a beta from being cleared into a safe harbour.

Perhaps the core of the Rebol code will see changes from struggles with a server, with multitasking issues, TCP/IP issues.  Perhaps an opinion could be informed by following the new rebol3 exchanges in the R3 world at altme.com

Maybe with economies so depressed, it is possible to imagine that there is no real urgency.  But the iPad is released an there is no Rebol option to Objective-C.

I am biased.  My interest is held more by ObjectIcon and Curl web content for poetry and poetry translation and for the last phases of adult foreign language learning.

There are other new languages of great interest: Io and Converge among others.  But as a web language, Rebol has always seemed to me to be an alternative to even Seaside in Smalltalk - and certainly an alternative to any language relying on regex.

It is not just that there is the imprint of one inventor over a group: that is the case with Io and with Falcon (the case of Icon after the death of Ralph Griswold is such a difficulty with at least three talented individuals on separate forks.)  In the case of Smalltalk, there was no standard and Self, Strongtalk or Slate were promising new directions - and now there is Io.

It may be that a beta with a graphical library is closer at hand than I am aware now that so many more developers are active in building modules for the R3 core.
And doubtless a Rebol 3.1 would be the version to await  for any major commercial project.

And in fairness, we are sure to see a Rebol 2.7.8 before Icon 9.5 - but still this has been a sobering story for anyone interested in the sociology of invention, if that is how best to understand such innovations  as computer programming languages on the edges or margins of science.  Not quite Esperanto and not the decoding of genomes.  An apposite analogy escapes me.