Query re: documentation for v. 5.2

[marbux <marbux@...>]

Hi, all,

We're testing a development build of the NoteCase Pro outliner that
substitutes Lua 5.2 for v. 5.1. I've encountered an issue that causes
me to ask whether the issue should be addressed in the 5.2
documentation.

table.getn and table.setn were deprecated in v. 5.1. [1] However, at
least table.getn was not removed and continued to work in v. 5.1. My
testing with v. 5.2, however, indicates that getn is now a nil value.
I am guessing that table.getn was removed in 5.2.

Checking user-contributed scripts, we've had a fair bit of use of
table.getn with v. 5.1 but that's probably not a show stopper for us.

However, I raise the question whether the version 5.2 list of
incompatibilities [2] should mention that table.getn was removed,
along with table.setn if it was also removed in the last cycle.

As things stand, there is no indication in the documentation that
these features have ever been removed, only they have have been
deprecated. Under a common understanding of *deprecate*,  "[f]eatures
are deprecated—rather than immediately removed—in order to provide
backward compatibility, and give programmers who have used the feature
time to bring their code into compliance with the new standard." [3].

This is not to suggest that our users should have been using
deprecated features.

Best regards,

Paul

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[1]. <http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html#7>.
[2]. <http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/manual.html#8>.
[3]. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deprecate>.