Re: Propsoal: a lua dialect without nil

[David Kastrup <dak@...>]

Dirk Laurie <dpl@sun.ac.za> writes:

> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 02:12:19AM +0200, Miles Bader wrote:
>> 
>> Pro:  One less subject for long flamey threads on this list
>> 
>> Con:  language becomes more complex, harder to learn, and less concise:
>> Con:  more annoying to program in:  
>> Con:  less efficient: 
>
> Absolutely.  Very well summarized.
>
> The one thing I can't understand about threads like:
>     -- nil is confusing, replace it by something else
>     -- implicit conversion is evil, get rid of it
>     -- table as only data stucture is inadequate, let's have some more
>     -- index origin 1 is silly, it should be 0
> is that such debates generate so much traffic, and respawn every now 
> and then, despite being so utterly futile.  The Lua team is never going 
> to change any of those.  

All of those except "implicit conversion" are based on a rationale
defining the language and pervade it.  Implicit conversion, in contrast,
is a wart actually interfering with the rest of the language (it does
not behave usefully/consistently in the context of operator overloading,
for example, or in the C interface).

Obsoleting implicit conversions could be done with a straightforward
roadmap, likely affecting a small subset of existing programs (most
people try avoiding implicit conversions anyway).

So I'd not put all of those listed items in the same category.  I
consider it likely that the Lua team is, at one point of time, going to
address this wart.  But I do agree that it is useless starting threads
about it.  It's not like there is anything the Lua team needs to know
and consider in addition to what they already are aware of.

-- 
David Kastrup