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by greggirwin 3368 days ago
I'll add to my reply, because this is a really good question.

Red doesn't have all types in place yet (e.g. date! is coming, and maybe an @ref type, among others), but can still load the following:

  at 10:00 send gregg@host.dom a link to http://red-lang.org (216.239.32.21)
  delete %/c/temp/junk.dat
  assign #DECAFBAD-7337 to John
  make the main window 800x600 with a color of 255.0.0
  answer: yes
Here's a quick console session showing what types it found:

  >> blk: [  at 10:00 send gregg@host.dom a link to http://red-lang.org (216.239.32.21)
  [      delete %/c/temp/junk.dat
  [      assign #DECAFBAD-7337 to John
  [      make the main window 800x600 with a color of 255.0.0
  [      answer: yes
  [    ]
  == [at 10:00:00 send gregg@host.dom a link to http://red-lang.org (216.239.32.21) 
      delete %/c/temp/junk.dat 

  >> unique collect [foreach val blk [keep type? val]]
  == [word! time! email! url! paren! file! issue! pair! tuple! set-word!]
And you can parse at that level:

  >> parse blk [
  [        some [
  [            'window set val pair! (print ["size:" val])
  [            | 'assign set val issue! (print ["issue:" val])
  [            | 'link 'to set val url! (print ["link:" val])
  [            | skip
  [        ]
  [    ]

  link: http://red-lang.org
  issue: DECAFBAD-7337
  size: 800x600
Of course, you could do something similar in ES6. If you use template literals, your data might look like this:

  at time`10:00` send email`gregg@host.dom` a link to url`http://red-lang.org` paren`(ipv4`216.239.32.21`)`
  delete file`%/c/temp/junk.dat`
  assign issue`#DECAFBAD-7337` to John
  make the main window pair`800x600` with a color of color`255.0.0`
  name`answer:` bool`yes`
Sorry for getting carried away. :)
3 comments

That does look handy! I guess there must be a tradeoff in having your text default to meaning plain words if you mess up the syntax? Versus hopefully getting an error in the ES6 case.
You can always get errors of course. The new `load/trap` feature gives you more flexibility in that area, but there are limits as with anything. Pretty handy for CLIs, though, when you expect your audience to know what "syntax" even means. :)
No need to apologize, that was a good example :)

I liked this big:

>> unique collect [foreach val blk [keep type? val]] == [word! time! email! url! paren! file! issue! pair! tuple! set-word!]

I think it could almost be read and understood by a person who does not know REBOL or Red.

Yup. We often write code like normal programmers, but sometimes we do build up vocabularies more, even when not using `parse` to write DSLs.

"Red or REBOL" = Redbol (sounds like Red Bull) :) And where Perl has Mongers, Ruby has Rubyists, Python has Pythonistas, and Rebol has Rebolers, Red has Reducers.

Ha, Reducers is a good term, considering: the goals of Red (reducing complexity being one), the small size of Red (and REBOL) programs that get non-trivial things done, and finally the size of the software itself (the interpreter - and also compiler in the case of Red). Even the small EXE sizes, in fact (though I've only created EXEs for small programs so far, with it).
What are the chances of authors getting the types like email and uri incorrect?

Oh, very high I would say