Red Programming Language: Static linking support

https://www.red-lang.org/2026/06/static-linking-support.html

by em-bee • 22 days ago

78 28 22 days ago

uticus• 21 days ago

https://re-bol.com/short_rebol_examples.r for some examples of the language (from https://redprogramming.com/Home.html)

em-bee8• 21 days ago

i'd be curious if red can be used as a commandline shell. the syntax should work well with it. it may just need some wrapper functions to be able to call external programs, pass arguments to them and capture the output.

klibertp5• 21 days ago

Not sure why it wouldn't be usable for that:

    -▶ ./red-cli-066
    --== Red 0.6.6 ==--
    Type HELP for starting information.

    >> call/console "echo 123"
    123
    == 0
    >> call/console "pwd"
    /home/cji/portless
    == 0

`call` has a bunch of refinements (toggles or switches appended to the function name with a slash; I'm using /console to redirect output to the parent's stdout), but it's a pretty low-level interface. You definitely could define a few simple helpers and get to a usable Unix-like shell pretty quickly. You'd get native AOT compilation for all your shell scripts for free.

The problem is that you could write those helpers in just about any language, and while Red has an edge over many due to the regular and simple syntax, it's by no means unique in that regard (TCL is an obvious alternative, Lisp-likes are also strong, and even Smalltalk could join the chat if you don't care too much about startup time). And 32-bit-only thing doesn't look good, even if it's not an actual problem in most cases.

In short: it can, but why would you? (Don't get me wrong: I like Red! But with so many other interesting languages (if you're willing to look past TIOBE Top 20), it's hard to justify investing more time into learning Red in particular.)

naltun• 21 days ago

Always nice to see Red updates (thanks for sharing)

andsoitis• 21 days ago

We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds. -Aristotle Onassis

Love that quote. More poetic than my quip “Hope is not a strategy”.

kryptiskt• 21 days ago

I'm a bit surprised that Red still seems stuck at 32 bits, like it was last time I saw something about it years ago. What is the roadblock that prevents them from building 64-bit binaries? I guess it must be very hard since otherwise it would have already been fixed.

em-bee8• 21 days ago

i think the holdup is the lack of self-hosting. probably the rebol compiler they use can only build 32bit binaries so self-hosting and 64bit support go together.

it's on the milestone for 1.0. and according to the roadmap 1.0 is a solid year of work. it's likely not the only thing they want to do for 1.0, but i guess self-hosting is a big chunk

rebolek2• 21 days ago

No, even Rebol2 can build 64 bit but the whole compiler needs to be rewritten to produce 64 bit binaries. It’s not limitation but deliberate choice made when 32 bit was still major target. It may seem silly in the hindsight. But it made sense then.

fithisux• 21 days ago

And still here.

rebolek2• 21 days ago

I always love to see Rebol and Red mentioned anywhere, as I spent more than half of my life with these languages, working with them and working on them.

Recently I started working on [Recoil](https://recoil.rblk.eu/) which is inspired by Rebol/Red but targets static memory-safe compiled niche to complement dynamic interpreted nature of Rebol. It’s still in very early phase but it already has some very nice features (at least I consider them very nice) like fully compiler owned `parse`, finite state machine and (lazy) finite state transducer datatypes.

Oh, and built-in Rebol-like scripting language that can run on (not only) ESP32 called F00.

It’s still work in progress but I like it. Maybe someone else can find it interesting too.

anthk• 21 days ago

Being able to bootstrap itself should be the main priority.

lanycrost• 21 days ago

Static linking is very essential feature for any such language, I've used it a lot with golang and like how elegantly and easily golang do that. Guess you need to have 64 bit :) of course if you not have any reason to stuck on 32.

em-bee8• 21 days ago

i never needed the ability to create a self-contained binary for myself, but when it comes to distributing software to other people it makes a big difference. it was always an issue with languages like python, ruby or pike for example.

so i am very happy to see a high level language get that potential. besides go only common lisp has that ability that i am aware of. others are either to low level (rust/c/c++) or to obscure. not even java does it, although java is common enough that it still keeps distribution easy enough.

to me this means now is a good time to start using red because now i can be sure that i'll be able to build tools that can be shared easily so i won't just be limited to create toys for myself.

64bit is the next big thing on the roadmap. so no need to worry about that. it will happen.

Archit3ch• 20 days ago

ability to create a self-contained binary
so i am very happy to see a high level language get that potential. besides go only common lisp has that ability that i am aware of.

Julia can do it.

Red Programming Language: Static linking support

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