Re: Proposal: Proposals are the wrong approach [prose and long]

[Coroutines <coroutines@...>]

On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 1:35 PM, Philipp Janda <siffiejoe@gmx.net> wrote:

> That's the problem with syntax sugar proposals: The advantages are purely
> cosmetic and subjective, and a matter of opinion. If your only pro argument
> is "I like", you will get con arguments "I dislike" (and as Hisham already
> said, both arguments are not worth much unless you happen to live in
> Brazil). Sometimes you will also get objective con arguments like conflicts
> with existing syntax, difficulty of implementation, backwards compatibility,
> performance concerns, etc., in which case "I like" is worth even less. It is
> a lot easier to get a constructive discussion going if your proposal has
> non-cosmetic positive effects.

I am not talking strictly about cosmetic/sugary proposals -- at the
same time I think certain sugar does help one think clearer about a
concept or how data is handled:

local a, b, c in some_table

Depending on the sugar, one can more clearly communicate an
idea/process - it's not all "I like" but sometimes "I can".

PS: One proposal of mine got through, in 5.3 userdata can be
associated with userdata through lua_setuservalue() -- eat that, lua-l
:P