Re: Empty? No. Array? No. Has? Yes.

[Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@...>]

2013/7/6 Tim Hill <drtimhill@gmail.com>:
>
> On Jul 6, 2013, at 1:53 PM, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> No. That's the Ruby way. The Lua way is that the three original
> designers are the only decision-makers. They are kind enough to
> contribute to this list now and then, and may even give talks at
> the Lua workshop on the way forward. Reread the posts Roberto has
> made on this topic: they give a very clear indication of his stance
> on whether something like 'empty' should be standardized.
>
>
> That's perfectly acceptable of course, but isn't this a forum (at least
> partly) where stuff like this can at least be discussed? There seem to be
> people here who are discussing several different, and interesting,
> approaches. And some others who are saying "This discussion must stop.". I
> don't agree with all the posts or ideas here, and I CERTAINLY don't expect
> everyone (or even anyone) to agree with mine. But muzzling discussion
> doesn't seem a very productive position. If the thread has become too long
> or boring for some (I suspect this is the case for you) the solution is
> simple; stop reading it.
>
> Nor do I expect every suggestion I advance to be adopted, or even any of
> them. I'm simply reporting issues that I, as a real-world user of Lua in
> some complex mission-critical systems, have found, and explaining WHY I
> raised them and why I consider them worth raising. In fact I'm always VERY
> careful in my posts to point out that in 99% of the cases Lua comes through
> with flying colors, and I'm only discussing the 1% where we have found there
> to be issues. Again, what's your problem with that?

Since the tone of the reply is personal, and its contents seems to
miss the point of my post, I shall not respond to it, but merely
rephrase my two points, the second of which was not quoted.

1. This discussion is not going to get the idea of "empty" into Lua.
2. The notion could nevertheless have a practical effect if offered
   in the form of a module which people can download and try out.