Re: Introducing luavm - Lua Version Manager

[Peter Aronoff <telemachus@...>]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 04:03PM, Peter Melnichenko wrote:
> Perhaps luavm could use hererocks for build step to avoid having to run
> 'eval `luarocks path --bin`' and to exploit some of its options, like
> choosing compat flags, building without readline, etc.

I'm glad you brought this up. I wanted to suggest something similar, but
I wasn't quite sure how to put it.

During the years I wrote Ruby, I used and contributed to several
environment managing tools (rvm[1], rbenv[2], ry[3], rbfu[4], and
chruby[5]). Although not *everyone* agrees on the best approach, I think
it's not an accident that over time these tools became simpler and smaller.
In particular, after rvm, most Ruby version managers stopped bundling
installation and environment changing into one tool. (Most use either
ruby-build[6] or ruby-install[7] for the installation job.)

It might make good sense to use hererocks as a Lua install tool and then
only have luavm manage environment changing. There are a lot of potential
advantages to keeping tools smaller and more focused, both for users and
for the people maintaining them.

As for the name, I bet chlua isn't taken. ;)

Best, Peter

[1] https://github.com/rvm/rvm
[2] https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv
[3] https://github.com/jneen/ry
[4] https://github.com/hmans/rbfu
[5] https://github.com/postmodern/chruby
[6] https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build
[7] https://github.com/postmodern/ruby-install

-- 
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