ASON AltScript Roadmap

Roadmap

This is an approximate roadmap for the direction of ASON and AltScript.

Near term projects:

ASON — A standard C and C++ libraries for the ASON text-to-memory parser and the memory-to-text formatter.
ASON-micro — A minimal footprint C library for small devices. Does not include the high-speed memory manager nor formatter.
ASON-binary — A library that converts to and from a binary form of ASON. Better for lean embedded systems where memory size matters.
AltScript — A high-performance interpreter for ASON code including standard functions for all datatypes, support for network connections, file I/O, encryption, compression, and more.

Long term projects:

AltBase — A small, super-fast non-SQL database implemented in AltScript.
AltOS — A new OS concept. All configuration and control files, logs, IPC/RPC, command shell, and applications are implemented in ASON and can use AltScript execution and AltBase storage. Applications written in C, C++, and other languages also supported.

24 COMMENTS

Giovanni2021-01-02 11:43 pm

Sounds good.

François Jouen2021-03-21 6:07 pm

Hi Carl, nice to see a new amazing project.

Bo2021-03-21 6:08 pm

I had heard that you were working on something new. Glad to see that it is coming to light! I’m very excited to see where this will lead. AltOS sounds particularly intriguing!

carl2021-04-05 8:23 pm

Hi Bo, it’s fun to watch how the word spreads. I didn’t even think this site was getting SE indexed yet.

JM2021-03-22 4:29 am

Interesting … waiting for more info or binaries 🙂

Giuseppe Chillemi2021-03-24 2:21 pm

It’s great!
I admit the only think I don’t like is array starting at zero but while Rebol target was humans, AltScript target is coders, so I have explained to myself this could be the reason.

Go Carl, go! I hope all the best for your!

carl2021-04-05 8:20 pm

Thanks Giuseppe. Yes, zero indexing was a hard one for me to accept, but you guessed the correct reason.

Giuseppe Chillemi2021-05-08 7:08 am

It is still hard for me to accept, as once you start creating DSLs with AltScript, when the DSL will be targetted at common humans, you will have to transpose the indexing from coder style to human style, adding a layer of complexity. But I close my eyes too and say “yes, it is the right choice, we need to be different but not too different!” and I accept it. Having AltScript some common grounds to the target user base is a trick to be adopted seeming similar while being different inside.

Danny2021-03-29 5:07 pm

Hey Carl, i just saw this for the first time and…
WOW. Good ideas all around. I’ve posted a
script i had for years, Rebol-DOM, with the
mdl-parser and believe it or not, i was attempting
to do some things very close to Ason in Rebol.
I’m not the best at programing but i put a lot
of time and thought in getting to the place you
are at now. So since my code may be compatable
to Altscript and Ason, i believe i know what to do
next. Make a new C Rebol Ason = Creation.

carl2021-04-05 8:19 pm

Hi Danny, cool to hear about it, and I like your combination of words!

eFishAntSteve2021-04-05 6:53 am

I’m currently designing a product/application based on JSON where ASON can excel. The benefits of your innovative technologies provide developers like me an efishantsea to compete with otherwise reverse-Moore’s Law, bloated software products.

carl2021-04-05 8:17 pm

Hi Steve, great to hear from you again, and I agree!

crex2021-04-12 4:34 am

Interesting. I’m looking forward reading how you handle redundancy in your collection of objects etc. Inheritance?

Giovanni2021-04-21 12:20 am

Hi Carl! I can’t wait to see these new projects!! Rebol was an authentic piece of art! I’m also really curious towards AltOS, AltBASE and the concepts behind them. Will ASON/AltScript/AltOS have also support for Webassembly, Node.js and DOM manipulation? All the best!!!

James2021-04-21 9:26 am

Carl,
Seems like old times, eh? Pekr posted the link to your site in the Red Gitter/chit-chat. Looking forward to working with this “new thang” you’ve gotten yourself into. Blessings to you, Cindy, and family, James

Ladislav2021-04-23 2:32 pm

Hi, Carl. At the Altscript vs Rebol page you wrote:
“Commas as element separators are allowed as long as they are not directly followed by a non-digit character (to avoid confusion with comma-based decimal values.)”
I guess that there is a typo, and that you actually wanted to say:
“Commas as element separators are allowed as long as they are not directly followed by a digit character (to avoid confusion with comma-based decimal values.)”
Good luck!

Zenja2021-05-02 5:25 am

Carl, may I recommend that ASON allows comments (both single line and block comments) to be supported. This is a one of many JSON flaws.

I do like the direction your going in, I can see this being very useful for many projects.

Allen2021-05-02 10:44 pm

Carl, this make me so happy to see.
Looking forward to where this journey leads.

Cheers,

AllenK

Giuseppe Chillemi2021-05-08 6:53 am

My reasonings let me think you won’t start from scratch but you will reuse some Rebol 3 source code 🙂 but I may be wrong!

Alan2021-05-11 8:43 am

Exciting. Will this be usable within a SPA (self contained JS framework app)? Or would it have to be ported to javascript? Or does it live on the server? It would be great to work with data in a web app the way we do with a rebol app.

Danny2021-11-01 12:41 pm

Any word on the progress of ASON?
Rebol-Dom.r
Still progressing. Promising. And a prototype
of what a Sequence type could offer along side
the almighty Rebol Series.

If you build it, we will pursue. And Rebol in mass
would be realized as the Relational expressive based
oriented language to be use for IT at large.

Ladislav2022-05-19 2:52 am

I guess that you probably read this https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html article by Edsger W. Dijkstra. In my opinion, Go language’s slices use it as a source of inspiration and there may be some properties to consider for Rebol too.

Danny2022-10-24 6:14 pm

It would seem bringing any valuable idea to fruition in time, is worthy. So were closing in on 2023. Is the idea of ASON Altscript still worthy. Is, or will it still be persude. It would be nice if it was built on top of something like Luajit2 64, Sciter, Appweb, TinyCC, Alua, or something others could easily extend, even though the core would be compiled separately the work could continue.
If there’s any work withstanding, could that be shared publicly? Appreciation all around for you Carl.

Giuseppe Chillemi2023-05-05 1:39 pm

Carl is silent, but I think the idea is still valid. Hope he will have some time to improve it.
Also, I have seen your release on rebol.org on 12th of Aprile, nice one!

ASON AltScript Roadmap