Interview with oofoe about REBOL, Forth, Decker, Janet and the VFx Industry

Oofoe, a former animation professional now working on precision instrument software, discusses his work with various programming languages, including REBOL, Forth, Janet, and Racket, in an interview. He explains the unique features of REBOL, such as its concise syntax, built-in first-class PEG (parsing expression grammars), and amazing declarative GUI library.

Oofoe emphasizes the language's self-documenting nature, thanks to its documentation features and decompiler. He also shares examples of his work using REBOL, such as a digital clock application and a visual video editor.

Despite REBOL's discontinuation, Oofoe praises the language and its creator, Carl Sassenrath, for its innovative approach to programming in the small. He notes that REBOL's simplicity and self-documenting features made it an ideal choice for creating small, efficient, and robust programs. Oofoe also mentions his interest in exploring other languages, like Janet, that have surpassed REBOL in PEG handling and self-documenting capabilities. However, he points out that Janet's GUI bindings are still lacking.

Oofoe discusses the philosophy behind programming in the small, as advocated by REBOL's creator, Carl Sassenrath. He believes that programs should be simple, efficient, and easy to understand, without the complexity of larger, more feature-rich systems. He attributes REBOL's success to its emphasis on human-sized code bases and the idea that global variables can be beneficial in certain contexts.