Re: [ANN] Lua 5.2.0 (work1) now available

[Alexander Gladysh <agladysh@...>]

<...>

>> If you take token filters specifically, I, personally, do not see wide
>> adoption of them (perhaps its just me though). There was a lot of hype
>> back then token filters were released, but now everything is quiet.

> The main argument is that a robust token-filter facility will make the
> life of the Lua authors much easier, because many "why can't I have X"
> can be answered "write a token filter" ;)

I've got an impression that they happily give this answer now. (My
personal favorite in this case is to send people to Metalua instead of
token filters, but that's me.)

Also, one of benefits of benevolent dictatorship is that one is able
to answer all such "whys" with "because!". That is a good thing for
the language.

<...>

> It can be argued that lexical filtering is at too low a level, and one
> ends up trying to second-guess the parser (e.g., the 'when does an
> expression end' problem)  Here we must look at Fabien's Metalua for
> inspiration.

Fabien's Metalua is *really* a cool thing, and I'm a big fan of it.
However, I believe, most of its benefits are unapplicable to plain
Lua. It is just too heavy. That is fine for another language (as
Metalua *is* another language), but Lua parser and compiler are famous
for being lightweight. You just can't take this out and stay Lua.

Alexander.