Re: mathlib

[Tim Hill <drtimhill@...>]

On Apr 7, 2014, at 6:43 AM, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:

> 2014-04-06 17:09 GMT+02:00 Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@inf.puc-rio.br>:
> 
>> Repeating ourselves: our suggestion involves moving sinh, cosh, and tanh
>> from mathlib to the loadable mathx library (which already exists [1]), as
>> we do not see (and nobody really addressed that specific point until
>> now) them being more used/important/basic/whatever than several other
>> functions there.
>> 
>> [1] http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2008-04/msg00435.html
> 
> If Lua 5.3 were to come with a "standard extension library", consisting
> of modules that are available by a mere "require mathx", "require lpeg",
> etc, those modules having been built and placed into the default loadpath
> and cloadpath by the default "make linux", "make mingw" etc, I shall
> withdraw all opposition to the suggestion.
> 


+1 on that. As soon a script has a dependency on a library, using it goes from “install lua and run the script” to “install lua, go to a bunch of web sites and/or download a bunch of Lua rocks, some of which you will have to compile .. oh, and make sure you have the right compiler .. oh, and you need a particular version of xxx” etc etc...

To my mind the reason this whole thing is such an issue is because library functions *are* significantly messier to use.

—Tim