Automatic Variables Local rather than Global (Proposal)

[John Hind <john.hind@...>]

As a long-time user of Lua in an environment where multiple scripters 
share a common global table (Girder 4), there is just one thing in Lua 
I'd really like to see changed. This is the automatic creation of 
variables in the global environment table.

I know there has been discussion of adding an explicit "global" keyword 
and an option to switch off automatic variable creation ("option 
explicit"). I'd like to suggest something slightly different.

My suggestion is that automatic variables should be local rather than 
global. To create or reference a global variable you'd have to use the 
"_G." prefix which is already available.

Where you currently create a global variable by writing:

x = 1

under my proposal, you'd write:

_G.x = 1

and the first statement would now be equivalent to:

local x; x = 1

This change would be more consistent with the lexical scoping of Lua and 
in practical terms would make accidental pollution of the global table 
less likely and easier to find using a simple search. It would also 
eliminate subtle errors were you think you are accessing a local 
variable but in fact are accessing a global with the same name. This 
proposal actually simplifies Lua by avoiding the need either for "local" 
OR "global" as a keyword.

However, as a separate but related proposal, a "using" keyword might be 
desirable - this would specify that, within lexical scope, a 
string-keyed table element will be specified using its key alone.

So you could write:
using _G.x; x = 1

This would work with any table, including deeply nested ones, not just _G.

If the first part of this proposal was adopted, transition would 
obviously be a problem. I'd suggest overloading the "using" keyword with 
"using global" and "using local" to allow specification, within a chunk, 
of the automatic variable policy. Anyone embedding Lua would be able to 
choose whether to preserve compatibility by making "using global" the 
default or to make "using local" the default and force scripters to 
change their code.

I really think this would be a big improvement to Lua both theoretically 
and practically and worth the undoubted pain of transition. Any comments?

- John Hind