Re: [LuaCheia] Let it begin.

["Thatcher Ulrich" <tu@...>]

My opinions on LuaCheia:

* Great plan!  This is more or less what I had in mind when starting
  with the Lua Binary Modules.  I'm glad to support the goals of the
  project.

* I would like to propose the existing Lua Binary Modules code as a
  base for LuaCheia.  I think it serves as a decent proof-of-concept,
  and there are already end-users doing useful work with it.  It seems
  to be the furthest along of any module-based Lua standard, so I
  would like to see LuaCheia pick up the code and run with it.

Re: binding standard.  I think it is hard to enforce the use of a
single binding mechanism, because there are a diversity of binding
approaches in existing libs.  Adapting all libs to use one binding
standard would be a lot of work, which IMO would be better spent
elsewhere.  Glua-X has the nice advantage of allowing modules to be
binary-compatible between Lua 4.0 and Lua 5.0, so I think it could be
a good option for many modules.  However, I don't think it should be
mandated, because many module authors may not want to convert their
bindings, or may not be able to because some necessary features rely
on lua 4.0 or lua 5.0 specifics.

Furthermore, for portability, maintainability and community
acceptance, I think it's best if the LuaCheia core is very close to
the default Lua distribution.  I think it would be cool if Glua-X
were packaged as a loadmodule-style module, so you could do:

loadmodule("Glua-X")
Gluahost("name-of-gluax-module")

That way, module authors can choose to get the benefits of Glua-X, or
stick with their tried-and-true existing binding methods.

Re: lua versions.  I think it makes sense to support both Lua 4.0 and
Lua 5.0 (and in the future, Lua 6.0, Lua 7.0, etc...).  Lua 4.0 is a
very nice and very stable scripting language, and as of today it is
still the current official release, with tolua support, many libraries
and projects, etc.  Lua 5.0 will gain more importance in the future,
but 4.0 will still be important and useful for a long time.

Re: portability.  Yes!  Please, anybody who is interested in helping
portability (that means YOU, Juergen Fuhrmann, D Burgess, Asko Kouppi
and Cameron Kaiser :), you can get started RIGHT NOW by going to the
Lua Binary Modules page at http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaBinaryModules
, and porting lua-4.0.1-loadmodule to your platform.  Then try porting
a simple module, such as LuaFuzzy or LuaPack.  That should 1) provide
something interesting for you to use, and 2) expose some issues
related to LuaCheia portability.  Even if the exact module mechanism
of LuaCheia turn out differently than Lua Binary Modules, the problems
and solutions should be basically the same.

Right now there is Linux and Win32 support, but no one has stepped
forward to handle OSX and other platforms.  OSX should not be
difficult for anyone with a compiler and a OSX machine.

Re: infrastructure.  The SourceForge project, using their CVS and file
servers for code management, is the right next step.  IMO the wiki is
good for communal prototyping and documenting ideas, but it is a
*very* awkward method for code development and distribution.  Also,
code downloads from the wiki file area are completely insecure and
vulnerable to trojans.

Re: leadership and labor.  This is the most significant factor in how
successful the project turns out.  The volunteers so far (Andy, Asko,
Bjorn, Euler, Juergen, Martin and Peter) seem like they're doing a
good job collectively so I guess formal leadership, if necessary, can
wait for some future time.

Re: GUI library.  IMO this should not be a controvery at all.  The
LuaCheia core should be tiny, and support any GUI library that
volunteers are willing to provide modules for.  Really this should be
volunteer-driven, and not exclusive.  I would be very happy to see
*both* FLTK and wxLua modules (I have fiddled with making a wxLua
module, but I've barely even gotten to the point of being able to
compile the wxLua distribution).

I guess that's all I have to say right now.  I'm very happy to see all
the enthusiasm surrouding LuaCheia, and I hope it can be channelled
into a great product.  I'm happy to volunteer opinions and occasional
code, although I don't have much time to contribute.

-- 
Thatcher Ulrich
http://tulrich.com