Re: mathlib

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 7:05 PM, Enrico Colombini <erix@erix.it> wrote:
> In the meantime, I think it would probably be a good idea to leave
> sinh/cosh/tanh() where they are, because people currently using them with a
> plain Lua executable would have to do a nontrivial effort to add them back
> just to keep their programs working.

Enrico makes a good point here - as long as it remains awkward to
'route around the damage' then keep math as is.

> A compromise could be to add mathx to the standard distribution with a
> compilation switch in luaconf.h to include it, but that would be a very
> slippery road (besides, mathx is C99).

With good brakes, slippery roads are not a problem ;)  There does
remain the C99 issue, not only MSVC (the elephant in any compiler
room) but those more obscure compilers out there. I consider mathx
special because lhf did it, and why not start blessing extra modules?
(That would be a real innovation)

Personally I haven't seen a compelling argument for changing math.
Everyone seems to use a part, and it's not the same part.  It's a bit
like abolishing a word in a natural language; a gap remains.