Re: Electronic version of the Lua book

["Michael Newberry" <mnewberry@...>]

Robert--- Maybe those 20+ people each need to buy a copy of the book as part
of the "cost of learning"?

Michael

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Anderberg" <lua@anderberg.co.uk>
To: "Lua list" <lua@bazar2.conectiva.com.br>
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 4:25 PM
Subject: Electronic version of the Lua book


> Hi,
>
> I recently wrote to Roberto asking whether an electronic version of the
Lua
> book was being considered or thought about. The reason is that, although I
> own a copy of the book, I now find myself in the situation of possibly
having
> to help 20+ people learn Lua.
>
> It's not very convenient for everyone to read the book, and people
generally
> want to be able to search for information quickly at their desks as they
> work.
>
> I certainly didn't realise how powerful Lua was until I read the Lua4 book
on
> the website, and even though I was using Lua5 at the time, I learned many
new
> and interesting ways to use Lua, and I then went on to build a whole game
> project around it (http://www.lua.org/uses.html#113).
>
> While I realise that the authors of Lua wish to sell a lot of books (which
is
> completely understandable and completely valid), I think that the language
as
> a whole has lost something now that the kind of information that's in the
> book (and was previously avaliable on the website) isn't freely avaliable.
>
> It's easy to look at the Lua language and miss the great things about it,
the
> reference manual doesn't give you that spark of genius that the book does,
> and the wiki, while being a great resource, doesn't have the weight of
> something writtern by one of the Language's authors.
>
> Another thing I've often thought; is there some way for people to
contribute
> to the Lua project? I'm sure many companies would be very willing to
donate
> funds to such a useful piece of software.
>
> I just thought I'd make my feelings known and see what other people's
thoughts
> were.
>
> Robert Anderberg
>
> ps.  I  apologise to Roberto for repeating many of the things I wrote in
my
> mail to him in this post :)
>