Re: [SUGGESTION] Some lfs functionality in os library, please!

[Russell Haley <russ.haley@...>]

On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 8:44 AM, Aapo Talvensaari
<aapo.talvensaari@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7 September 2016 at 17:53, Daurnimator <quae@daurnimator.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 8 September 2016 at 00:40, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Every time I require lfs, I ask myself: why is this stuff not in the
>> > os library?
>>
>> Everytime I see the `os` library I ask: why did this come with lua? I
>> always replace it with my own variants anyway.
>
>
> Any examples? Lua only or Lua + C module?
>
>>
>> As the python community has slowly learned: the standard libraries are
>> where functions go to die. see
>> http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2012/04/where-modules-go-to-die/
>
>
> Once, I was a programmer writing C#. The language evolved hugely over the
> time
> that it didn't almost look like a same language after a few versions.

This is an interesting comment because Microsoft is right now in the
process of taking the big fat .Net Framework (that I happen to love)
and breaking it down into a .Net Core platform with "extensions" that
can be retrieved in binary format via Nuget package manager. Sound
Familiar?

As Per Steve Litt:

> I think Lua is *by far* the best language in the world. So why do I use
> Python almost exclusively these days? It's because I know if I start a
> project in Python, I'll be able to complete it. Python has a well
> curated set of libraries so that whether my need is XML parsing, SNMP,
> YAML, HTTP requests, or pretty much anything else, my language provides
> the stuff too techy for me to write from scratch. With Lua, I get no
> such guarantee. I might not find the needed library, or I might need to
> pick among three of them that do part of the job, and kludge the final
> 10% that none of the libraries give me.
>
> I understand that I'm nowhere near representative of Lua users. I have
> little interest in writing games, firmware, C-Lua interfaces, and the
> like. I write plain old computer applications, which is where you need
> better libraries. And because I'm atypical, my needs shouldn't
> determine what gets thrown on the computer when you install Lua. As one
> person posted: "pulling in another library for basic file operations is
> not always possible when shipping with minimal builds of Lua."

This is my position right now as well. I just wanted some client
websocket functionality in 5.3. I have found four different libraries,
and only one of them "meets" my "requirements" (i.e. smell test) and
it doesn't build for 5.3 right now! But should websockets be part of
the base library? I don't think so because the reason I am using Lua
is it's so damn small and fast and light. A more experienced open
source developer said to me that Lua (like his favorite JimTickle)
applications become more dependent on the supporting libraries than
the core libraries. Clairvoyant!

I don't think this is a Lua issue. It's an open source issue. LuaRocks
go and Github go a long way to making other packages more manageable,
but the same problems exist everywhere. Getting more people to write
the code YOU want is hard! There is no one size fits all in software
so the only "practical" answer is to have a small core and build out
your tool chain accordingly. Don't think that MS is changing their
framework out of altruism...

Anyway, I'll be futzing with lua-websockets if anyone needs me. ;)

Russ