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Rebol

Rebol (ˈrɛbəl ; historically REBOL) is a cross-platform data exchange language and a multi-paradigm dynamic programming language designed by Carl Sassenrath for network communications and distributed computing. It introduces the concept of dialecting: small, optimized, domain-specific languages for code and data, which is also the most notable property of the language according to its designer Carl Sassenrath: Although it can be used for programming, writing functions, and performing processes, its greatest strength is the ability to easily create domain-specific languages or dialects Douglas Crockford, known for his involvement in the development of JavaScript, has described Rebol as "a more modern language, but with some very similar ideas to Lisp, in that it's all built upon a representation of data which is then executable as programs" and as one of JSON's influences. Originally, the language and its official implementation were proprietary and closed source, developed by REBOL Technologies. Following discussion with Lawrence Rosen, the Rebol version 3 interpreter was released under the Apache 2.0 license on December 12, 2012. Older versions are only available in binary form, and no source release for them is planned. Rebol has been used to program Internet applications (both client- and server-side), database applications, utilities, and multimedia applications. Rebol was initially an acronym for Relative Expression Based Object Language written in all caps. To align with modern trends in language naming represented, e.g. by the change replacing historical name LISP by Lisp, programmers ceased the practice of writing REBOL in all caps. Sassenrath eventually put the naming question to the community debate on his blog. In subsequent writing, Sassenrath adopted the convention of writing the language name as Rebol. First released in 1997, Rebol was designed over a 20-year period by Carl Sassenrath, the architect and primary developer of AmigaOS, based on his study of denotational semantics and using concepts from the programming languages Lisp, Forth, Logo, and Self.

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