Newbie query - getting an interpreter using SPARK up and running ...

[Andy Elvey]

Hi all .
  I've been trying to get a little interpreter going which uses John
Aycock's package, SPARK.   The language I've chosen to try is Rebol , for
two reasons -

 a) Rebol's syntax is simple , and ...
 b) Testing should be easy - the Rebol binary (which I have) is less than
half a meg to download.

 Sadly, no luck with my efforts so far!    What I'm trying to get going is a
*small but central*  part of the language, as follows -

Rebol consists of words, blocks and functions.  Examples -

 myword: "a nice little string"     anotherword: [ This word uses a block]
 and_yet_another_word: [ 'Alan':  '333-2354'
                                        'fred:  '435-6453' ]    .  <- This
word creates a block.

Just by the way .... a word like fred:  is  a word of datatype set-word! in
Rebol.  The colon isn't an operator.
If we have a word like  fred: 123
   fred: gives the word a value -   123 .
   'fred (with a single quote) returns the words name (fred here) but does
not evaluate it .
    fred  - This means to evaluate the word - it returns 123 here.
   :fred - retrieve the words value , but don't evaluate it .  Often used to
refer to functions or blocks without evaluating them.

Blocks and rebol code can span multiple lines.

 Functions are defined like so :   sum: func [arg1 arg2] [arg1 + arg2]  .

 Are there any "SPARKatistas" out there who may be able to help?  I imagine
that anyone who's used SPARK for a while could get a simple little
interpreter like the one above running in about an hour or so .....
   The reason I'm doing this is to learn about Spark , but just like "riding
a bicycle" , I need a little "push" to get me underway ...:-)   Very many
thanks for any help received.  Thanks for your time .