Re: Proposal: allow @, $, !, and ? in Lua identifiers

[Coroutines <coroutines@...>]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 5:37 AM, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't want it. Apart from the appalling Perlish appearance that Lua
> programs could then acquire, it wastes syntax space that some future
> Lua might wish to exploit for adding semantics. Aka bikeshedding.
> Imagine if an earlier Lua had said '#', '~', '|' and '&' are  OK in identifier
> names. Where would we be sitting now?

I do agree it would be harder to make these operators someday if they
were put into the definition of a valid identfier now. +1

> I actually have my personal build in which lctype.c is modified
> to do what I thought I needed at the time. It's nice. One can have
> UTF-8 names, such as APL characters, astrological symbols,
> Hebrew letters.

I forget what type of argument it's called when one speculates to the
imaginable worst of a proposal to justify not changing anything, I
could swear I read the term in a book recently :(  It's like when
'people' say legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to marrying
animals, yes?

I think there are valid uses for ? and ! -- @ and $ I just threw in to
see what people could come up with. :-)