Re: [proposal / postulation]: global keyword that works with lua as config file

[Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@...>]

On Sunday, March 30, 2014, Philipp Janda <siffiejoe@gmx.net> wrote:
> Am 31.03.2014 01:09 schröbte Tim Hill:
> > [...]
> >
> > To my mind “the Lua way” is have as LITTLE policy as is practical.
> > The question, therefore, is really this: is it sufficiently useful to
> > have a policy-based method to manage global variable declaration to
> > justify it’s addition? Notice that this has nothing to do with HOW
> > such a policy is realized. This is because policies solve issues of
> > standardization, while the realization of policies involve issues of
> > efficiency and compatibility (and, dare i say it, elegance).
> >
> > The OP points out that the problem with existing
> > implementations/work-arounds/hacks (choose your word) is that they
> > all collide with 3rd party code such as libraries. I’ve had this
> > issue as well; it doesn’t really matter what you do with the existing
> > solutions, they only really work if you have total control of 100% of
> > the source in your project.
>
> That's not true. It's just that the `strict.lua` provided by the Lua authors *as an example* does not handle that case (to keep it simple, I guess). You can have each module author choose the method he/she wants to use to catch unwanted globals, no policy needed here at all. This is obviously true for static offline approaches, and for the dynamic approaches I've thrown together and attached a proof of concept based on the original `strict.lua`. Use it via
>
>     require 'mstrict'()  -- notice the extra pair of parentheses
>
> in every file you want to. No third party modules are harmed in the process. Global assignments at the top level still count as declarations. Have fun!
>
> > [...]
> >
> > —Tim
>
> Philipp

Thank, everyone. My mind is changed and I've been educated. I now see why things are the way that they are. 

I said there err new keywords when I meant more operators. I now understand that to be a very significant difference (from dirk's fork).  

I concede my points. Maybe as in "continue -> goto", there might be some kind of tweak that brings about a bit more of the flavor of what I was reaching for, with my thought. 

But, your kind responses helped me understand much. I will find some time in the next month to play with the world of static analysis. 

Thank you, Internet! :)

-Andrew