Say what I will about DocKimbel, I feel like he makes the most productive point in the comments, replying to Carl's post, corrected to include a DO:
Author: Nenad Rakocevic
Date:16-Oct-2008 2:48:33...
I'm a little disappointed that you didn't add a few simple examples to make the point understood by everyone and show the power of REBOL semantics. Maybe with something like this :
C way:
if a > 3 [ return "a greater than 3" ] if b < 10 [ return "b is a lesser than 10" ] if ... [ ... ] ; ...long list of IF statementsREBOL way :
foreach [condition msg][ [a > 3] "a greater than 3" [b < 10] "b is a lesser than 10" ... ... ][ if do condition [return msg] ]REBOL master way :
foreach [condition msg] load http://site.com/facts.r [ if do condition [return msg] ]...
And as he says, that's just off the top of his head. He isn't claiming it's the best "step 1, step 2, step 3" that could be shown. He asks people to brainstorm about better, but no one actually does so.
I'd contrast this with his spreadsheet example, which I think was not a good marketing concept. That is going to invite comparisons and competition...which is kind of all it did. Just read the comments on his post and on hackernews... a few people brought up the usual suspects, Tcl/Tk, K2, even arguing the JavaScript is clearer--which I actually agree with. If he had the time to play more code golf, he might have already known the competition this kind of example is up against. Take my word for it from trying: you don't want to go into such fights unprepared, it is downright hard to beat some of those guys:
https://github.com/DennisMitchell/jelly/wiki/Tutorial
So there's what I think is a good example and a bad example, both from DocKimbel, and I think understanding what makes the good example good is how to understand what Rebol's true "revolutionary idea" is. I think it's a "red" herring to try and argue that you need more or less computer experience to use the language.