Re: Flush the term upvalue from 5.1 manual

[John Belmonte <john@...>]

John D. Ramsdell wrote:
> Section 2.4 of the 5.1 beta manual includes the following text:
> 
>    Because of the lexical scoping rules, local variables can be freely
>    accessed by functions defined inside their scope. For instance:
> 
>       local counter = 0
>       function inc (x)
>          counter = counter + x
>          return counter
>       end
> 
>    A local variable used by an inner function is called an upvalue, or
>    external local variable, inside the inner function.
> 
> First, let me point out that an upvalue is not a type of value, and an
> external local variable is not a type of variable.  Confusingly, both
> of these terms refer to a type of variable reference.  Since Lua is
> now lexically scoped, you can use established terms to describe its
> scoping rules.  Let me suggest the following replacement for the last
> paragraph.
> 
>    In the displayed example, each reference to the variable counter in
>    the function inc refers to a local variable that is bound outside
>    the inc function's body.  In other words, the variable refers to a
>    binding inherited from the scope in which the function is defined.
>    A variable reference that refers to such a binding is called
>    inherited binding reference.

Roberto, in his talks, freely admits that "upvalue" is not the best
term.  However, do we want to replace every instance of "upvalue" in the
C API with "inherited_binding_reference"?  Please let's not have another
naming and meaning debate on this as in 2001.

--John