RE: LuaCheia Mailing List Summary

["Bilyk, Alex" <ABilyk@...>]

I have been following the LuaCheia thread for a while. Correct me if I am wrong, but the main idea behind this effort is to eventually create something like Perl or Python in terms of functionality, libraries and general usability but using Lua as the language facility. Would this be the right way to look at LuaCheia effort? If not, in what ways LuaCheia is expected to differ significantly from Perl or Python, aside from being based on Lua?

I guess the bottom line question is this. Is there anything I can't do in Perl or Python today that I would be able to do with LuaCheia eventually?

Thank you,

AB

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Wrensch [mailto:twrensch@uop.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 9:12 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: LuaCheia Mailing List Summary

LuaCheia Mail-List Summary week ending Feb 23, 2003

This is a summary of the decisions that have been discussed and made
during the previous week on the LuaCheia mailing list.

------

Discussion of which threading library to use. Some suggestions were:
    - Pthreads
    - SDL threads
    - "Cheap Threads..." article
No decision reached.

---

What extensions to use for different platforms? There seems to be two
possibilities: Use a standard extension for all systems (many
suggestions, including .x, .lux, .lch, etc.), or use the native platform
extensions.

The consensus seems to be to use the platform standard file extension.

---

Considerable discussion of CVS structure. Issues:
    - Including Lua source in the CVS?
    - Overall structure changes suggested.

Lua 5.0b sources added to the CVS (minus 'test' directory)
Many of the overall structure change suggestions were agreed to. Some
were made (?). Still in flux.

---

Limit posting to LuaCheia mailing list to people who have joined the
project?

Consensus seems to be "yes". To do otherwise would make decision-making
difficult.

---

Modify Lua in LuaCheia to accept #-line as a comment? (Actually only
requires supplying a block reading function, at least in Lua 5.0).

It's been suggested that this is resolved as a separate readconfig() or
some such function that is not part of the language. Couldn't confirm
based on mailing list traffic. Needs confirmation.

---

There was some question about where small tool scripts (in Lua) reside.

Unresolved.

---

Placement of the luacheia module in the global namespace of Lua. Should
it be its own module (in the global 'luacheia' or part of the 'lib'
module structure: 'lib.cheia').

Seems to be moving toward use of lib.cheia rather than a separate module
name in the global space.

---

Problem with listdir function: can't determine if a file is a
subdirectory or not. Suggested solutions:
    - Use listdir again to determine if subdir
    - Mark name of directories (trailing '/' char)
    - Make subdirectories subtables

Seems to be moving toward use of trailing '/' if a portable technique
can be found, or use of a second listdir if not. May be able to handle
conversion between these two in Lua rather than C.

---

Suggestion to move many of the functions currently stubbed out in
luacheia.c (?) to Lua functions rather than C functions.

Several people have agreed to this, but not enough to make it a
consensus.

---

Commenting style: put comments before or after the function prototype?

Consensus seems to be that either is fine, but we should probably pick
one as the standard.
(Note: Choice will probably move to after because much of the existing
code is done that way).

---

Move to DevCPP/MinGW for windows port (rather than MSVC).

Seems to be a consensus (and a good idea to boot!)