Re: Questions about writing a C library

[Jamie Webb <j@...>]

On Wednesday 24 March 2004 05:20, Phil Bewig wrote:

> I have mentioned a few times that I feel a strongly
> functional flavor in lua.  I suspect that in addition
> to lists, lua would be improved with some library support
> for higher-order functions.  Function composition,
> currying, identity and negation functionals might all
> be useful. 

See http://lua-users.org/wiki/StandardLibraries

> In a parallel universe far from here, I am
> currently finalizing srfi-40 for streams; would an
> explicit delay/force, as in scheme, fit the language?

How does this differ from nullary closures?

> Closures mean that lua has the tools to be programmed in
> continuation-passing style; has anybody done that and
> survived?

No theoretical reason why you couldn't, but I think the syntax would drive you 
crazy (it'd be even worse than Scheme :-).

> Please don't think I am trying to force lua
> to fit my idea of the perfect language.  I'm not.  I'm
> just responding to what I see when I look at the language.
> Hopefully my comments as an outsider might trigger those
> of you who are experts to add features and expressive
> power to the language, wisely, in keeping with its own
> unique character.

I think it might be worth noting that a major part of Lua's 'unique character' 
is its simplicity. At one point for example, I had great plans to write a 
library that would endow Lua with sophisticated OOP capabilities; I decided 
not to bother in the end, because the ad-hoc OOP done by most Lua practioners 
suffices in most cases, and can be extended in small ways if necessary. One 
thing I do agree with you on though is that I would like to see (optional) 
type-checking made a more formal part of the language (incidentally, in 
answer to your question about that, you probably want luaL_checkudata() and 
related functions).

-- Jamie Webb