lua-users home
lua-l archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]


> On the PS2 stuff, we have had some discussion internally about how to
fix
> our own game engine typecasting for multiple platforms, and given the
> coming generations of hardware and a planned Spring release of the
next
> Lua, I wondered if the next version of Lua will have any typecasting
> improvements planned?
> 
> As many posters have mentioned in past posts, it would be nice if Lua
> defined the types/length it needed in one place so it could easily be
> ported to take advantage (or avoid pitfalls) of certain hardware
features.
> A side benefit would be improved testing because if it was super
simple to
> try out new releases of Lua quickly more people would be apt to give
it a
> go and would likely find more bugs faster.

Lua's type specifications and type management have improved in Lua 5.
You used to have to go through the code and change everything from
double to float (kids don't know they're born, in my day, etc. etc.) but
you only have change lua_Number now.

I think the only problem I have now is long, which is 64 bit on the PS2.
There are only a few occurrences in the Lua code, but nevertheless it
makes sense to remove them (for PS2). It would be nice if the longs were
ints or user defined. If in Lua long is assumed to be the same size as
int (i.e. the machines native word size) there seems little point in
using it at all.

Nick