Re: Feature proposal: \x## notation in strings

[Benjamin Tolputt <btolputt@...>]

Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:
> Again, not arguing in favor or against the feature, just to make things
> straight. The "all of the people" is around 20, currently. The list
> has some 1700 members. Even if all of them ask for the feature,
> that would be a *very* small fraction of Lua users. And a very biased
> fraction.
>
> (If each group of 20 users [or 200, for that matter] would have its own
> 10 lines of code, Lua would end really bloated.)
>   

Quiite true, but how many of them are "active" members compared to those
that just read to keep up with releases, new patches, etc. My point,
however, was the broad support (with technical reasons) the feature was
receiving with minimal (and dare I say it, non-convincing ) arguments
against it. It's not too often I've seen that kind of support for a
feature on the list, making it a worthy point (if not a worthy REASON).

> Technical arguments (hexa is tight, can be unambiguous, is good for
> masks and other bit tricks) are wellcome. Non-technical ones ("many
> people support it", "many people expect it", "many other languages have
> it") have no weight.

I was under the impression that "least surprise" was a goal of Lua?
Given I cannot recall where it was that I heard that though, I may well
be mistaken... in which case, I apologise.

-- 
Regards,

Benjamin Tolputt
Analyst Programmer