Re: Makefile vs LUA_PATH inconsistency

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

On Friday, May 16, 2014, Ulrich Schmidt <u.sch.zw@gmx.de> wrote:
> Am 16.05.2014 10:52, schrieb Thijs Schreijer:
> > > There is no global accepted rule where to install lua.
> > > I compiled/installed luajit on ARM-Linux and your directory tree becomes
> > > created in /usr/local/. Thats ok for me. Luadist makefiles does not
> > > recognize the installed juajit and do not cooperate with it. So it does
> > > not matter where you pull your module sources: you need to modify the
> > > makefiles anyway. After playing with Lua for a year on windows & Linux,
> > > i know there is no widely accepted way to name installed files and no
> > > widely accepted rule where to store the installed files.
> > >
> > > So if you want to set up your own running lua environment: "Roll your
> > > Own!" Thats state of the art. And as long each developer / each distro
> > > keeps creating own rules it will keep being this way.
> > >
> > > Ulrich.
> >
> > But at least the defaults should work out-of-the-box, no?
> >
> > Thijs
>
> If i want to be rude, i would say: "there are no defaults i can trust."
> Everyone defines his private setup as "default". So we have as many "defaults" as we have Lua versions, modules, distibutions and so on. (not counting my own default ;) ).
>
> And no one thought about, windows need a complete different directory- & file name structure. In case you want to install Lua5.2 and (Lua5.1 || Luajit) parallel on Windows, the Linux directory tree does not fit the windows needs.
>
> But all this is no big issue: Define your own directory structure, adjust PATH & CPATH, cannibalize existing makefiles and "Roll your own" ^^
>
> Ulrich.

Ulrich,

Why have the default at all if the default is broken out of the box?

What we all do is not hyper-relevant. I believe that this affects...

...what someone who installs Lua for the first time experiences

...what LuaRocks should follow, by default.

I don't use MinGW. Does it have the "usr/local" structure? If you install something like git, is it expected to be nested into /usr/local/bin, or similar? If so, then I believe that the luaconf.h file should root itself there, if it were possible. 

If not, then the make file would need to use the Windows structure.

I do not think that the tree needs to be versioned, given that it's rooted to a specific executable. That is, unless my other suggestion were to be adopted (make specific version first search, then non-version second search).