Re: Lua 5.3 changes to .__eq

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

On Sunday, July 12, 2015, Peter Aronoff <telemachus@arpinum.org> wrote:
> Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@trms.com> wrote:
> > I think that this change was motivated in part by this thread:
> >
> >  http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2014-06/msg00067.html
>
> Perhaps, but I have to admit I much prefer the answer Roberto gives to that problem
> later in the thread: http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2014-06/msg00134.html.
>
> --
> We have not been faced with the need to satisfy someone else's
> requirements, and for this freedom we are grateful.
>     Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, The UNIX Time-Sharing System

Yes. And the code that I used to create it was not especially... necessary. 

The problem solved was indeterminate behavior: depending upon when the GC was tripped, you had either a different closure or the same closure. That sort of possibility/bug is very frustrating and would require some awkward documentation, imho.

Perhaps your view is that one dark corner was traded for another? I don't have a strong opinion, other than that indeterminate behavior in Lua should be limited, as much as is possible (even if only to deal with edge cases like this).