Re: All your local are belong to us

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

On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 7:41 PM, Paul Merrell <marbux@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Gregg Reynolds <dev@mobileink.com> wrote:
>>
>>>   Every Lua beginner makes the same mistake: using local variables in
>>> interactive mode of Lua standalone interpreter.
>>
>> That's called learning,  and working through it is a valuable  experience.
>
> Point noted. But it's also important to keep in mind that Lua has
> users with different proficiency levels. The existing documentation is
> great for the proficient but very poor for a newbie with no
> programming experience.  For example, the manual says that an ellipsis
> ("...") is a reserved character but never explains its functionality.
> Likewise, the Manual is rife with words and phrases that are commonly
> understood by experienced programmers but come across as Klingon to
> newbies.
>
> In my mind, the biggest thing that has held Lua back from much wider
> adoption is the dearth of documentation for newbies.
>
> I return to my suggestion that we get the documentation into a wiki
> that can be annotated with example code, notes, and links.
>
> 'Nuff said.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Paul
>
>
> --
> [Notice not included in the above original message:  The U.S. National
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> message.]
>

Another approach would be to distribute a version of Lua that was
specifically designed for command line consumption. Which is only a
lot bit close to the whole "Batteries" thread.

There is a line between "Embedded Scripting Language" and what PERL
is. Adding thoughtful hints like this makes even more sense, when
there is a reasonable library, package manager, etc.

Since Lua's REPL is mostly useful when developing Lua applications, it
seems like its terse and "documented only just enough" approach is
consistent with the rest of Lua.

An enhanced and possibly more verbose repl seems like a great fit for LuaDIST.

-Andrew