Re: Lua Ecosystem

[Sean Conner <sean@...>]

It was thus said that the Great Michal Kolodziejczyk once stated:
> On 26.11.2013 23:46, Justin Cormack wrote:
> 
> >>   I'm not trying to shoot your idea down, but there are issues I think you
> >> missed.
> >>
> > 
> > We are going to brutally decide on a best interface and officialize it.
> > Somehow. But its going to happen...
> 
> Exactly that I am sure that if such a common set of "blessed libraries"
> is to emerge, then it has to have some assumptions, for example: all
> modules return tables. I think the first step would be to design common
> API. Then, if I really want "incompatible" modules to enter this
> ecosystem, I would write wrappers to make them compatible with this API.
> 
> Of course there is a question: how to design this common set of
> interfaces. I think either there will be a leader with a clear vision of
> this (any volunteer?), or it will be voted for by the community (slow
> process with lots of iterations :( ).
> 
> So, in short: focus on API first, then map it on concrete
> implementations. So I do propose a "top-down" approach rather than
> "bottom-up" (trying to unite all existing implementations into common
> API - probably imposibble).

  So how does this work?  

  Something like ...

  I propose an interface to syslog (RFC-3164).  The table returned shall
have the following functions:

	log(level,message,...)
		level = one of
			'alert'
			'crit' or 'critical'
			'debug'
			'emerge' or 'emergency'
			'err' or 'error'
			'info' or 'information'
			'notice'
			'warn' or 'warning'

		message, a string, uses format string as string.format()
		other parameters

	open(id,facility[,options])
		id = string
		facility = one of
			'auth'
			'authpriv'
			'auth3'
			'auth4'
			'cron'
			'cron2'
			'daemon'
			'ftp'
			'kernel'
			'local0' to 'local7'
			'lpr'
			'mail'
			'news'
			'ntp'
			'syslog'
			'user'
			'uucp'
		options = table, with the following fields (not all
			required):
		
			pid 	boolean, log PID
			cons	boolean, log to console
			nodelay	boolean, open connection immediately
			odelay	boolean, wait to open connection
			nowait	boolean, immediately log

	close()
		Close a connection to the syslog daemon

	setlogmask(level, ... )

		only log listed levels (see log() for list of levels) to
		syslog.  Levels not listed will not generate an entry.

  The table returned shall have the __call metamethod defined, which will be
equivilent to 'log(...)'.  

  If people want functions in the form of foo.error(), they can be written
as:

	log = {}
	for _,name in ipairs { 'alert' , 'critical' , 'debug' , 'emergency' , 'error' , 'info' , 'notice' , 'warn' } do
	  log[name] = function(...) syslog(name,...) end
	end

  -spc