Re: Short function definition syntax; thoughts on Lua (was Re: [ANN] GSL Shell new beta release...)

[David Jones <drj@...>]

2009/12/4 Francesco Abbate <gslshell@gmail.com>:
> Another resistance is against modification of the interpreter to
> introduce complex numbers. For me is very simple: people without a
> strong mathematical background does not understand the importance of
> complex numbers. In my point of view the complex number as native
> types is *fundamental* for any serious numerical calculation work .
> full stop. If the majority of people here does not want to introduce
> complex numbers in Lua I understand because the majority of the user
> base has a background mainly on IT or computer science and not on
> mathematics, but IMHO this is an error. full stop.

We don't want to introduce complex numbers into Lua because they don't
work on 1990 C (ISO 9899:1990), and real people still do real work on
platforms that only have ISO C 1990 compilers.

It is not hard to modify Lua to add complex numbers, and that's no
accident (in fact, I even had a very small hand in it).

You're attitude is bordering on arrogant.

David Jones