Idea: Lua Max, a complete standalone Lua

[Björn De Meyer <bjorn.demeyer@...>]

This is an idea I have been toying with for a while, 
and I wish to throw it into the group to see if there 
is interest for it. 

Lua is a nice language, especially for embedding. 
With Lua 5 we get many nice features that make embedding
However, I feel Lua should also be used more commonly
as a standalone language. For that, I believe more 
functionality will be needed. 

My idea is then for us Lua users to make a Lua Max 
(or the same thing under another another name) wich 
is a standalone Lua which comes with many useful, 
yet mostly portable libraries built in. The target 
platforms would be Posix, X Window, and Microsoft 
Windows platforms. Included in this LuaMAX could be: 

* Loadlib dynamic library support.
* A lightweight GUI toolkit, probably FLTK.
* SQL functionality.
* Complete regular expressions.
* Assistance for CGI, web-based programming.
* PThreads.
* Sockets.
* Extended math.
* Directory handling, filesystem manipulation.
* zlib compression support.
* Lua script repository that facilitates common 
  tasks such as OOP/inheritance programming.
* Etc, etc.

Does this interest anyone here enough to help me 
put some effort in this idea? I could only handle the
Linux ports, Windows would be for someone else.


-- 
"No one knows true heroes, for they speak not of their greatness." -- 
Daniel Remar.
Björn De Meyer 
bjorn.demeyer@pandora.be