Degenerative discussions

["Jeff Wise" <jwise@...>]

I really appreciate the Lua list.  My technical questions have been answered
even though for the most part, they were trivial syntax questions.  It seems
I continually confuse VBA and Lua, probably because my memory is failing.  I
also learn a lot by reading this list.  Unfortunately, a lot of the
information is over my head.  I am very much a Lua and PC newbie.  My
expertise is S/390 assembler and Fortran.  To my credit, I do know a little
C, PL/I, and COBOL.  I have used REXX on the mainframe as well.  And I am
learning Lua.  I see "closure" and "state" mentioned and do not have a clue
about this.  Hopefully, I will learn.

The question Mr. Kelly raised disturbed me, probably because I ask "dumb"
questions... or have been accused of such many times.  I think that his
question about Lua is valid.  I also think that his environment is important
in understanding his question.  I think that his questions, assuming that
they are "emotionally loaded", should be answered in the spirit that it is
better to defuse such emotion than to counter it.  Please do not infer that
I agree or disagree with any position on this topic.  This is very much
about the "rules of engagement".

I will digress into a recent work experience of mine because it is totally
detached from this subject.  I left the IT industry and started a landscape
company.  After a while, I noticed that some of my customers would try to
tell me "how" to perform the work.  As a customer, it's natural to feel that
the provider should do it your way.  As a provider, your bid was based on
the assumption of doing things the way you normally work.  Of course this
"should" have been discussed before.  It just usually doesn't happen that
way.  My experience was that once a customer started down this path, that I
could not please them REGARDLESS of what I did.  It was just better to walk
away, but this was hard to do with contracts.

As an IT contractor, I've heard questions similar to those mentioned by Mr.
Kelly.  I am wondering if the right thing to do is just to tell these
clients that perhaps they'd be better served by someone else.  Since I have
three kids in college, I fully realize how difficult this might be.  I think
we, as an IT community, ought to address this question about dealing with
difficult clients.

In most of my career, no one cared how I implemented a solution, and there
was really only one choice, so I avoided this situation.  Now that I am
forced to do VBA (a Visual Basic derivative for MS Office) and am aware of
the VB6 versus VB.net disaster, I see this problem in a new light.  I was
attracted to Lua because it was reputed to be "small and fast". It has more
that met my expectations.  The Lua business model is an asset in my opinion,
in contrast to say VB.net.

We can't stop progress, thus Lua will change, and somehow this evolution of
software (and hardware) will ultimately drive Lua- and everything else in
IT. 










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