Re: Why coroutine can't be indexed?

[HyperHacker <hyperhacker@...>]

On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 10:14, Dirk Laurie <dpl@sun.ac.za> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 09, 2011 at 05:38:59PM +0200, HyperHacker wrote:
>> On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 09:33, Dirk Laurie <dpl@sun.ac.za> wrote:
>> > On Sat, Jul 09, 2011 at 04:58:10PM +0200, HyperHacker wrote:
>> >> That one can easily do it with a metatable especially
>> >> makes me wonder why it isn't done by the library itself
>> > If this argument were valid for coroutines, it would apply equally
>> > to tables:  why must one say table.insert(list,item) instead of just
>> > list:insert(item)?
>> >
>> > To answer your question: it is not done by the library itself
>> > _because_ one can easily do it with a metatable.
>> >
>> > "Less is more" — Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969), architect.
>> >
>> > Dirk
>> >
>> >
>>
>> I'm pretty sure it's not done with tables because list:insert(item)
>> already has a different meaning (to look up 'insert' in the table
>> 'list'), and to set up a metatable like that could be confusing. (Why
>> t:insert() doesn't work? Oh, because t has a key named 'insert'
>> already... now is t2.insert a key in t2 or in table? etc)
>>
> Sorry, I did not absorb your whole post when writing the reply
> above.  Tables are indeed different in an important way.
>
> The interesting question to me is, since it is so easy to say
> debug.setmetatable('',{__index=string}), why the equivalent of that
> has been built in.  There must have been a debate on that a few
> years ago: could an old-timer tell us the clinching reason?
>
> Dirk
>
>
>

That's a big part of my confusion too: why this is built in for one
type but not another...

-- 
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