Re: The Undefined Country (was Re: Quest: real world "Lua array with holes" usage)

[Ulrich Schmidt <u.sch.zw@...>]

Am 25.07.2016 um 00:58 schrieb Andrew Starks:
> 
> My goodness. Lua does not need another nil or empty or undefined value. We
> don't need === for that matter, either.
> 
> This is a really simple language. Sometimes you even have to perform some meta
> programming, in order to get it to do what you want. That's normal for Lua and
> it should be embraced as a part of its character--not rehashed over and over,
> only to realize that the road to perfection leads to complicated.
> 
> -Andrew

+1

The Point is [1]. You never ever can write a program or define a computer
language without flaws and ambiguities.
The ingenious point of the lua language is, that a large part of the 	
ambiguity was moved to that "nil" thing. (I dont name nil a value by purpose)
So what is nil? a) no value? b) a value that represents no value?
I have chosen a) and I LIVE WITH IT! I could discuss new language features
that resolves the ambiguities for nil, but you will shift the ambiguities and
problems (YOUR problems, not the language ones) to a different point but
eliminating them. Knowing this, i dont contribute to those discussions too
much because those discussions do not lead to any usefull result.

Ulrich.


[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems