REBOL/Pro

Coolnamehere> Geekery> REBOL> REBOL/Pro

2009 Feb 23: Rebol Technologies doesn't even sell the Pro release anymore, so you can ignore this page.

I've just purchased Rebol Pro, but I didn't really know where to find information on the specific features which are enabled. I asked at the reboltalk forums, and they gave me enough information to start this page. Thanks, folks!

What does your $99 US get you? I've summarized it below for my own good, but you can also look at a few pages on the Rebol site for the official details:

Shell Access

Now you can use the call function, which provides execution access to the other programs that have been installed on your computer. This makes a lot of tasks much simpler, as any shell scripter can tell you. I've had a lot of fun using the shell access features in Pro, and it's made this a fair degree more useful at work. And it was pretty handy before!

Shell Access Documentation

Looks like shell access is part of Core with the latest releases. That's good, because I felt a little silly paying for it.

Library API

Rebol/Pro can link to external libraries. Like what? I guess the possibilities are nearly endless. It's all a little blurry to me, although I hope to figure out the Library stuff someday. For the meantime, there is a nice-looking OpenGL example at rebol.org. Hm. Looks like that one doesn't work under Linux. It's got a generous license, though, so an ambitious hacker could probably strip out the Win32 dependencies without making anyone angry.

Library API Documentation

Encryption

In case you need to encrypt things. Or make keys. Here is another topic that I don't know much about. I've got a fine user perspective - make a key, use ssh or scp, don't trust a site that doesn't use https for the money part of its transactions, stuff like that. But now I guess I have something else I should learn about. Encryption is a major requirement for usability in a larger team or for services offered to the public.

Encryption

Sound

The availability of sound can add a rich dimension to your View applications, and make it easier to write simple games. Okay, so maybe sound isn't such a big deal, but it's a nice little add-on to have.

Sound API

Support

Oh, and you're a paying customer, so you get some support from RT. I always forget to use it, but maybe you're smarter than me.