Re: Upstream is not the last word (was Re: [ANN] Lua 5.1.5 (rc1) now available)

[Josh Simmons <simmons.44@...>]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Ross Bencina
<rossb-lists@audiomulch.com> wrote:
>
> Do you think every line of what you supply needs to be custom? Are you
> really using absolutely no standard utility functions? no reusable
> abstractions? generic functions? If not, then colour me surprised. I had to
> write a bunch of abstractions just to get started. Sure, they were light
> weight and simple, but they were still necessary to make the code readable.
>
> My assertion is that if there is no "base library" then every Lua embedder
> has to concoct their own base library. Which is fine for custom jobs, but
> not so easy to manage when the whole thing is then published as an open
> programming system for other end-user-developers to use. Every such
> publisher becomes their own Cardinal (to use the previous blessing analogy)
> -- I have enough jobs already, I don't want to be a Lua language Cardinal, I
> just want to publish something with a "standard base" that's usable..
> whether the standard base is object-oriented or functional is less important
> that it is usable by end users without me or end users writing a bunch of
> expected "standard" infrastructure.
>
> Ross.
>

I have a string.split that I find quite handy, note though it's
slightly different in every case because every case is slightly
different.

Not quite sure what you were saying before about standard container
classes? This is Lua after all, and we have the wondrous table which
manages quite well to subsume the common data structures.

Anyway as has previously been mentioned if you're serious about this
kinda stuff the best bet would probably be to contribute to penlight
(or that other one). Those of us who don't prefer to add dependencies
are not likely to change our minds and join the cause any time soon
however if penlight continues to become more compelling it may become
something of a de facto standard, which is about the best you could
hope for as far as I can see.

Cheers,
Josh