Re: Building Lua on Windows

[Peter Drahoš <drahosp@...>]

On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 7:21 PM, Thijs Schreijer <thijs@thijsschreijer.nl> wrote:
>> > See http://www.thijsschreijer.nl/blog/?p=772
>> >
>> The author did not follow the correct instructions for installing
>> prerequisites[1], in short having sh.exe in your path is a BAD idea for
>> various reasons. The install instructions for LuaDist[2] should be easy
>> enough if you want to build from source. You can also use the binary
>> downloads from luadist.org[3].
>>
>
> Peter is right, I did have that. But the quote above, at all, is a remark that fits with a unix-type-of-guy, even on a windows system (no offence to Peter). I happen to be a windows-type-of-guy on a windows system, so dependencies like that remember me of the DOS days.
> There is a new effort trying to get stuff working out of the box, based on LuaDist, probably a gui and then some. That looks great, but isn't there yet. LuaDist bundles LuaRocks, but it doesn't work (steve already filed an issue for the missing config file), that was my main reason to drop LuaDist for now and switch back to LuaRocks again.

No offense taken, we want the same thing. Just pointing out that
LuaRocks is not the solution to the situation on Windows. But I agree,
LuaDist is not there yet, hence the initiative on the luaforwindows
mailing list but It is usable as it is now.

> I found myself in the same situation as the OP, tired of LfW with outdated modules, non-functional/upgradeable LuaRocks, based on an old runtime. So I set out to do it from scratch and the post mentioned are my findings so far.
>
> Any way, Lua on Windows is a PITA. Probably a short coming on my end, not being used to commandlines, makefiles, or stated otherwise a lazy, ignorant windows user (that even considers Visual Studio to be a fantastic product).

It is, but it has excellent binary compatibility for what its worth.

>> Its also worth noting that LuaRocks will not install any external
>> libraries so the selection of packages you can install on Windows is
>> limited.
>
> Didn't get that one... what do you mean with "external libraries". Do you mean in some cases it will build the Lua binding for a library, but not the underlying library itself?
> Doesn't LuaDist only build the packages it has in its repo?

To make things clear. LuaRocks is a binding manager, it is
specifically designed to deliver Lua bindings some of which point to
_external_ libraries which are taken from the host operating system
package manager. Since Windows does not have one it is very limited on
the platform as you need to build and supply the libraries yourself.
This situation is generally recognized as "dll hell" because you will
end up using libraries from various sources which may be incompatible.

LuaDist on the other hand is a package manager. It installs any
software including various versions of Lua, LuaJIT and many Libraries
such as wxWidgets. It builds everything from source and thus you avoid
"dll hell". However this comes at a price, it is more complex, it
needs CMake and maintainers etc. But it does solve the problem.

This does not mean I am bashing LuaRocks, I am just pointing out that
it is not the tool for the job and it newer was. You need a package
manager in order to use LuaRocks to its full potential .. that is why
it is so important to bridge LuaRocks and LuaDist together on Windows,
they complement each other.

pd