Re: Are automatic coercions ever going away?

[Coroutines <coroutines@...>]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 8:19 AM, Roberto Ierusalimschy
<roberto@inf.puc-rio.br> wrote:

> Just a few days ago we sent a message stating that we are not sure about
> this whole thing anymore [1]. You probably missed it.


I have trouble taking the whole 'coercion in lua is bad' thing anyway.
It's not like Javascript where you can concatenate and add two things
together with the same operator (+).  I am never confused about this
in Lua as + will derive numbers, and .. will derive strings.  There is
no overlap for operator use.  I don't find these "coercion sites" very
ambiguous even if metamethods are called from left-to-right on
availability.  I'm just tired of people who hate coercion in every
language speaking like they know what's best for Lua from an
ideological pedestal.  I do agree that have the option to disable or
leave enabled coercion might have the potential for a fragmented Lua
community, but I find the prospect very unlikely.  The only rift I've
ever seen has been between Lua<->LuaJIT.

I can't think of any such places but I know there must be code hiding
in the C side of Lua where coercion should be possible (following the
normal rules) but isn't.  I'd like to see more work done to remove
these situations -- otherwise I'm already happy.

Go Brazil?

PS: I feel like certain others only want coercion gone so they can do
compile-time static type analysis.  I have never needed this as
important as it sounds... my view seems less 'shallow' at runtime.
Quack quack.