Re: Why I leave Lua (Was: Re: [ANN] Lua 5.3.0 (work3) now available)

[Hans Hagen <pragma@...>]

On 7/9/2014 2:44 PM, David Demelier wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It is a hard decision to take, I've been following Lua for two years and
> used it intensively in several projects including irccd [1] and Lua-SDL
> [2]. There were already things that I didn't like much in Lua but I
> could deal with it but some are much more annoying for me.
>
> * No continue keyword

I never missed that one. (But then, I also still have to find my first 
application for goto.)

> * The equality operator

That's personal .. one could also argue for <> as well ... it's the 
designers choice. The new 5.3 operators demonstrate that there is room 
for more, so who knows what interesting things != will do in the future).

> * Closed source development

Very controlled is a better description. One of the reasons why we use 
Lua in Luatex. Every time there is an upgrade of change the accompanying 
descriptions demonstrate that it's part of research and not whims.

> * Compatibility

Changes are often for the better and easy to adapt to. They are also 
announced well in advance. And ... one can always stick to an older 
versions (thanks to the independency of libraries).

> * Modules

I like it that there is not the burden of installing lots of (not used) 
libs (as with perl,  python or ruby). Again that was a reason why we 
went for Lua.

> * Lua's authors decisions

A delight that we have authors who are careful, don't listen to all 
(often conflicting) demands, are willing to discuss whatever comes up, 
and made the development part an academic research instead of commerce.

The development principles can hardly be a surprise, and one can 
identify them before choosing for Lua.

Hans

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