## [REBOL][1]

It's built around the notion of code-as-data, like [Lisp][2] is. The language's adherents have a hard time explaining what its unique benefits are over other approaches in that family, and usually wind up shrugging and saying something like <i>"Well the guy who designed the AmigaOS came up with it, the standard library is included and microscopic, and once you 'get' it that will be like taking the red [Matrix pill][3] and you'll never want to go back."</i>

The trouble with it is partially that it's quirky and hasn't precisely defined which programmers are its market. But also partially because many of the people advocating it [just suck at explaining][4]. :)

But [Douglas Crockford][5] used to be a fan, drew some inspiration from it with the creation of [JSON][6], and has suggested people look into it as recently as October, 2010:

> "Ted Neward did a really good job of
> moderating the panel on 'Future of
> Programming Languages'. At the end of
> the panel, Ted asked the panelists
> which languages they though people
> should be learning in order to get new
> ideas. The list included Io (Bruce
> Tate), <b>Rebol (Douglas Crockford)</b>,
> Forth and Factor (Alex Payne), Scheme
> and Assembler (Josh Bloch), and
> Clojure (Guy Steele)."
>
> Source: <a href="http://www.sauria.com/blog/2010/10/22/strange-loop-2010/">sauria.com</a>

I think it's worth looking at for anyone looking to stretch how they think about language design and extensibility. Now that it's open source *(after 18 years of proprietary development)* the usual disclaimers I used to give for keeping it at arm's length no longer apply... it's worth a look! The community has even gotten out of their proprietary Rebol-based messaging program and [started chatting on Stack Overflow](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/291/rebol-and-red) *(much to my surprise!)*

 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REBOL
 [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_%28programming_language%29
 [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill
 [4]: http://xkcd.com/566/
 [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford
 [6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON