Those poor newbies (Was: Re: __index and __newindex)

[Dirk Laurie <dpl@...>]

> ... When I was a newbie I missed that too.  
> ...
> While a blob of code is sufficient, it is too formal for newbie (who 
> is not necessarily verse enough in Lua to get a full grasp of it).
> 

I have programmed in, oh, twenty computer languages.  

Only in the Lua community have I found this attitude of great concern 
among experienced programmers for the problems those poor newbies have 
in learning the language.  The so-called gotchas.

This concern is totally misplaced.

Almost invariably the item in question involves some subtlety in the 
language that no genuine newbie would be using — a nuance that an
experienced programmer, no longer a newbie, overlooked when hurriedly 
putting an advanced feature into code.

Like __index and __newindex in metatables.

Dirk

--[[
After a lecture by Paul Dirac, someone said: “I can't follow the step 
halfway down the third blackboard.”  There was a hushed pause which 
seemed to drag on interminably, until Dirac was asked whether he would 
answer the question.  He replied: “It was not a question.” ]]