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

[KHMan <keinhong@...>]

On 12/9/2010 12:13 AM, John Passaniti wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 7:05 AM, Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:
> > When we write about Lua (e.g., [1]) we try to give proper
> > credit to all significant prior work, being it from the Lua
> > community or not; we surely will give proper credit to
> > Reuben if we write about the bit library. [...]
>
> As far as I remember, the progression of what is now called bitlib
> went something like this:
> [snip]
>
> The current alpha code in 5.2 doesn't appear to be based on my,
> Reuben's or Mike's code, so I don't know if it makes much sense to
> credit any of us except in some abstract functional sense.

Thank you for taking the time to fill in some details.

To clarify, by "credit", I do not mean an issue of direct usage of 
code; I mean that bit32 will basically be supplanting the position 
of a library that was pioneered by you and others. (Of course, not 
completely, but you get the idea...)

In this case, it may not be worth much value in an academic paper; 
it may also be a small library that is well within the means of 
many of us to write -- but it did go before bit32 and people used 
it. And now a form of it has been adopted.

To me, it may not be significant to say a PhD examiner, but it is 
not an insignificant contribution or predecessor.

Thus, as bit32 eclipses some of the older stuff, I think it does 
not hurt us materially to show some recognition for the latter. A 
pity the "thanks" page is so democratic...

--
Cheers,
Kein-Hong Man (esq.)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia