Re: proposal (RE: Making vars local by default)

[Jean-Claude Wippler <jcw@...>]

Tom _ <tom7ca@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Having to switch to a new
>> assignment operator like ":=" would be much more
>> annoying.
>
>I'm not suggesting switching.  I'm suggesting
>adding the ":=" operator (and possibly a "global"
>keyword for use with ":=" that does not otherwise
>interact with "="; see my other posting).
>
>Nobody who doesn't want to would have to switch to 
>using ":=".  Code that uses "=" would continue to
>work and seamlessly work with code that uses ":=".
>"x := y" would simply be a shorthand for "put
>'local x' at the beginning of the function and
>write 'x = y'".

That's not the whole picture: from then on both coding styles would start
to proliferate and gradually become part of libs, tools, etc... :(

Assignment is not really the issue, let's please not overload that (quite
standard) concept.

I really don't see what the big deal with globals is.  In large programs,
I find that much "variable" accesses happen to objects anyway, not locals
on the stack.

Have you considered the following:

    function blah(...)
        local v = {}
        ...
        v.a = ...
        ... = v.b
        ...
    end

Would that, plus "test/undefined.lua" perhaps, (at least partially)
address your concerns?

-jcw