Re: A rant about Lua

[Asko Kauppi <askok@...>]

I watched this RubyConf video last year:

	http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/keynote.html

Made me think that each one of the mentioned four areas of  
improvements (reasons to fork Ruby) are non-issues for Lua:

	Ruby Light			Lua is light by heart (everything is a module); though  
repeat..until can go. :)
	
	Parallel Ruby		Multiple working solutions on Lua

	Optionally typed Ruby	MetaLua or luaSub can do this (to a point).

	Ruby with Closures	hmm... :)

Actually the last one means more like 'Ruby as in LISP'.  Anyways,  
I've never required "if" to be defined as a function in Lua.

In addition to the whole non-issueness about Lua, while we do have a  
central code base (of the authors), we also have a thriving 2nd tier  
of patches and other mods, which -it seems- they don't. This is hugely  
important, since variation is good for evolution.

-asko


PhiLho kirjoitti 2.1.2009 kello 12:57:

> Benjamin Tolputt wrote:
> > On the whole, this mailing list is quite amenable to discussion on  
> > the
> > language. Alot of it is ignored thereafter, but comments & criticism
> > seem well received... just rarely acted upon. This is part of the  
> > whole
> > "Lua development is closed to outsiders" mentality that both allows  
> > for
> > quicker/cleaner release iterations and inhibits outsider  
> > contribution :)
>
> Personally, I feel fine with this development way. I perceive Lua as  
> being carefully designed, with changes that don't hesitate to break  
> previous releases (on major versions) - since Lua is (often)  
> embedded, if you don't like changes, stick with the version you have  
> - but are well thought, discussed here, amended along some  
> suggestions, etc. And compatibility among minor versions is  
> carefully maintained.
>
> Lot of suggestions here, like support of +=, are just no usable in  
> the syntax of Lua and therefore are proved wrong by ML members. You  
> can't "act upon" them if that mean integrating them to the language.  
> Others are just cosmetic (replacing do ... end by { ... }) and  
> mostly show people just can't switch among different syntaxes.
>
> "quicker/cleaner release iterations"? Not sure that quicker releases  
> would be cleaner... And do you mean current releases aren't clean?
>
> "Outside contributions"? You can see lot of them on the Wiki... Lua  
> code is small, can be built very quickly, so adding patches and  
> tweaking your version isn't an issue. You can even keep the changes  
> private if you wish.
>
> Again, I like this controlled evolution, I wouldn't like to see Lua  
> becoming PHP, with its large but inconsistent library (stripcslashes  
> vs. strip_tags, etc.).
>
> Lua isn't perfect, that's why we see regularly new releases. It  
> isn't your average text editor, that's why there aren't 10 releases  
> per year...