Re: Suggestion, Lua Sizes

["William C. Bubel" <wcbubel@...>]

On 02/09/2012 03:56 PM, Patrick wrote:
> A few months ago I started a thread "panda bears will die, sloths will
> live on". I really regret it. I upset some people, people I respect.
> 
> Having said this, I meant well and I think some of the issues I failed
> to articulate are still valid today.
> 
> I think that list members are often pushing the Lua team in directions
> they probably should not go in. For instance, I was pushing for an
> easier way to split code into separate files and was comparing Lua to
> Python and PHP, I wasn't worried if Lua got a bit bigger.
> 
> Now I am not doing desktop work with Lua and am more interested in the
> embedded side and I want Lua to be smaller. I am impossible to please
> and as a whole so is the list.
> 
> I have a suggestion.... why not divide the language into sizes? For
> instance lets say standard, vanilla, PUC Lua was size 3. Size 2 could be
> the same Lua shipping with long int's and size 1 could be Lua shipping
> with plain int, or something like this, others would be better qualified
> to sort this.
> 
> Now this is not very interesting but what about Lua size 4, the
> community edition? Why not make a bigger, slower, more feature rich Lua
> that the general community could develop.
> 
> Perhaps this would end, the endless discussions about what is missing or
> wrong with Lua, whatever was missing could be added to the
> design-by-committee version and the Lua team could focus on the version
> they want to work on with just a few smaller sizes pre-compiled for
> convenient number types.
> 
> If you like my idea great, if not, that's fine but I would like to pay
> my respects to a wonderful community that has helped me a lot and if
> this suggestion stinks, I will keep trying-Patrick

I think what you're really asking for is, in addition to all of the
existing Lua versions, a version that's designed to take on the web in
the same way that PHP has. If you consider Perl, which has CPAN, then
Lua already has this in the form of LuaRocks. And of course, PHP has
Pear, Python has Egg, and Ruby has Gems. As I see it, that's just a
matter of having the community pull together and focus efforts into one
place.

I think the challenge, however, is getting members of the community to
step up and perform the unpaid and highly criticized work that everyone
else will eventually benefit from.