Re: mathlib

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

On Monday, April 7, 2014, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2014-04-07 21:51 GMT+02:00 Hisham <h@hisham.hm>:
> > On 7 April 2014 16:38, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> There has been more negative reaction, in stronger language too,
> >> to every point raised in favour of keeping the functions, from PUC-Rio
> >> than from any of the users elsewhere. The one point that is hard to
> >> argue against, that the saving in executable size is less that 0.1%,
> >> has been ignored.
> >
> > Countless other features have also been proposed in the past that
> > would amount to 10-line patches and they have been solemnly ignored by
> > the Lua team (including personal favorites of mine which I shall not
> > name here lest this thread starts drifting off again). That's why _I_
> > didn't even touch the "executable size" argument; I suppose that when
> > they proposed the removal, they were already aware of how much code it
> > was.
>
> There is a substantial difference between not adding a proposed feature
> and actually removing an existing feature of approximately the same size.
> In the first case, you are merely disappointing the expectations that some
> optimists had. In the second, you are running the risk of breaking something.
>
> I'm not saying that breaking existing programs is something to be avoided
> at all costs. When an existing feature cannot coexist peacefully with a new
> and better feature, of course it should be removed with some regret.
>
> But removing sinh, cosh and tanh (and not even with regret) in no way
> improves Lua except the insignificant savings in size and the service
> paid to the ideological goal of smallness. Is that really worth the risk of
> breaking something?

Is this a real question or an _expression_ of frustration? 

In my own work, when I'm designing an API and find that the design doesn't look like the interface, I might refactor and often for no good reason other than it doesn't "feel right." I'm not suggesting, even a little, that this is the reason here.

But the value of design and how one might prioritize it _can_ come down to a very personal decision.

I read this thread and I keep concluding that "math" is a library that stands out as being especially "application" and not "language" oriented. That is: it supports peoples ability to apply lua to a set of problems, not help it generally work within a system. 

It's possible that this is the source of the debate.

> The maxim goes: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
> Not: "If it ain't broke, then break it."