Re: More on environments and objects

[Adrian Sietsma <adrian_groups@...>]

Mike Pall wrote:
> Interesting. Looks like many programmers (when new to Lua or
> to its ancestor languages) experience the same learning curve.
>
> Usually the discussions go along this path:
>
> 1. implicit local vs. explicit local.
> 2. static typing vs. dynamic typing.
> 3. specialized types vs. limited type diversity.
> 4. automatic type coercion vs. explicit type coercion.
> 5. dot-only vs. dot and colon.
> 6. implicit self vs. explicit self.
> 7. exception dispatch vs. pcall().
> 8. object equality vs. object identity.
> 9. OO vs. closures.
> 10. complexity vs. simplicity.
>
> Lua is different. The familiar syntax is deceptive.

true, but many of these (5,7,9) are not either-or.
i have a simple sorted-insert linked-list, implemented as a table of 
functions with one upvalue. it's in a heat point, and i don't need a 
metatable, just 3 functions.
that said, i love the : syntax for other stuff: setting the metatable of a 
table to point to table (is that a recursive sentance ?) gives the lovely 
t:insert() syntax. also complex classes benefit from :.

i have c++ calling lua, and i have lua calling c / c++.

that's what i like most about lua - you can use it in the manner that best 
suits you and the problem at hand.

Adrian