Re: Lua Programming wikibook

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Mark Otaris <mark.otaris@gmail.com> wrote:

I have started writing, in January 2013, a book I have called "Lua
Programming", which I have published on Wikibooks. This book is now
complete, and I am announcing it here to make it known to people who
could be interested in reading it or contributing to it. Since
Wikibooks is a collaborative project (in many ways like Wikipedia, but
with, as its purpose, to create educative textbooks), anyone can
contribute to the books it hosts, and this includes this book.

Many other languages (Haskell, Python, Java, PHP, _javascript_, Ruby,
and others) have a textbook on Wikibooks, and I wanted Lua to have one
as well. I think this book is valuable in particular because it is
available to read for free on the web and is released under a free
license (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike), because it has a
general focus, and because it does not assume any programming
experience, while containing content meant for people of all levels.

At the moment, the focus is given to the usage of the language itself
(the syntax and the libraries) because that's what I know best. There
is no documentation of the C API or of more internal or technical
details; this is something that is really missing and I hope someone
will fill this gap one day.

The book is available at this address:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lua_Programming

Wow! This is impressive work. :)

Having read (or at least skimmed vigorously) the whole thing, it really does seem well done. The organization is clear, and the chapters cover their material well. I was disappointed initially when you mentioned you didn't cover the C API, but after having seen the whole thing, I don't think it would fit well with the rest.

--- Introduction

Informative, but it reads a bit like a history text. I ended up wishing it would be closer to the style of the rest of the book.

--- Expressions

I liked this chapter, because I like the discussion around the types and what can be done with them, rather than just listing them out. There's also good reference here and some code examples, which keeps things interesting.

--- Statements

I enjoyed this chapter for the same reasons I enjoyed "Expressions" but this chapter covers way more ground than Statements, but seems to be around the same length. It seems things could be reorganized to allow for this to be as thorough as the previous. Perhaps the discussion on variables could be pulled into "Expressions", and "Statements" could be devoted entirely to assignments and flow control?

This chapter discusses more theory behind things like assignment, rather than being confined to covering Lua. I like this because I wish Lua's reference manual had more theory and "how to actually use this" in it.

The final bit on chunks is good to read, but doesn't fit with the rest of the chapter. I would consider moving it or even leaving it out altogether.

---Functions

This is a decent chapter on functions, but it doesn't really capture the richness that functions afford the programmer. Lua is also somewhat unusual in that it treats functions as first-class functions, allows closures, has explicit support for tail-call optimization, and comes builtin with a coroutine library for even more ridiculous flow-control options.

But I digress. This does a good job of explaining how functions work at a ground-level. I would just love to have this chapter have the same level of detail as the stuff you did on assignment.

--- Tables

This is a solid chapter. Probably my favorite of the book. I feel like the balance between practical demonstration and theoretical explanation is spot-on.

--- Standard libraries

I like this chapter, especially the stuff on garbage collection and coroutines, but I feel like it could have a better chapter name. Miscellany, perhaps? "Other topics"?

---

All in all, I really enjoyed reading it, and I hope my commentary is helpful to you. :) The book could serve both as a supplement to the official reference, and independently as book to learn programming concepts. There's also a taste of theory, which I appreciate (but always want more of from the books I read ;) )

-- Aaron

--
Aaron Faanes <dafrito@gmail.com>