G'day again,
This is a longish message, so TL;DR:
- I'm * CROSS-POSTING * this message to lua-l@lists.lua.org and
to luarocks-developers@lists.sourceforge.net;
- Gentoo only has LuaRocks up to 2.2.0, which doesn't have the
"--outdated" option for the "list" command;
- LuaRocks itself is up to 2.4.1, according to the version number
quoted in the "Quick Start" code block;
- My opinion is that ActiveState is hoping, by carefully
snapshotting, heavily testing, providing polished documentation,
and clearly versioning most, if not all of the Lua/LuaRocks
ecosystem, to add enough value to be able to on-sell to
customers.
(End of TL;DR.)
- - - -
First of all, a *** CROSS-POSTING *** warning:
I'm sending this message to both the "lua-l" mailing list, where my
previous message was sent, but also to the "luarocks-developers"
list on SourceForge, which I only found out about today.
This message is mainly informative, it does not directly ask for
any response. However, it is indirectly provocative regarding the
discussion of the ActiveState proposal to provide
"business-friendly"
packaging of Lua, possibly including the extended LuaRocks
ecosystem.
The ActiveState discussion originated on the lua-l list.
So, if you choose to reply, you probably want to choose which list
to post to (possibly limited by your list subscriptions, of course).
(End of cross-posting warning.)
Thanks to all who helped me with my initial query regarding outdated
installed rocks, (notably Hisham and Peter, in lua-l Digest Vol 76,
Issue 11).
I've merely used Gentoo to install LuaRocks, and it only has 2.2.0 as its
latest (unstable) release, which I've installed. I find from the "Quick
Start" portion of the LuaRocks project page that the "wget" command
references [...]/releases/luarocks-2.4.1.tar.gz as its first line. So,
my naive view was that Gentoo had been fairly good at tracking
third-party releases (and this was correct, for Lua itself), but I now
realise that this was not true for LuaRocks.
The 2.2.0 release of LuaRocks does not have an "--outdated" option on
the list command, hence my confusion regarding the lack of an easy way of
finding out if I had outdated rocks installed. I'll contact Gentoo and
ask their people to look at updating the LuaRocks release list, but, in
the meantime, it looks like I'll need to uninstall the Gentoo package and
use the Quick Start commands directly.
(Incidentally, I notice that the code fragment in the "Quick Start"
block downloads and compiles the LuaRocks tarball in the first four
lines, installs "luasocket" in the fifth line, and then lines 6-8 seem to
be a demonstration of how you can then load the socket module:
- Perhaps as a sanity check?
- Perhaps because it has important side-effects expected elsewhere?
- Perhaps because socket may be used for uploading rocks?
It seems that there are two, or perhaps three, things going on in that
code
block. Simply saying "This is how to install LuaRocks" seems to
oversimplify things a bit... at least, that's my opinion.)
I tried looking on the LuaRocks website to see if I could see some
release notes regarding the LuaRocks program itself, but couldn't find
anything easily. I haven't inspected any tarball directly yet, to see if
a detailed list of changes, including bugfixes and/or new features, is
included in the tarball itself.
I believe that ActiveState, by putting together a "batteries-added" Lua
ecosystem package, where *all* components of each release bundle are
carefully tested for compatibility, the versioning of the bundle is
clear,
and the documentation is a little more polished (at least, for LuaRocks)
than at present, is thinking it can add value to the Lua ecosystem
that it
can then on-sell to potential customers.
Finally, I hope that this message has been informative, and I really,
really hope that it doesn't start and/or add fuel to a flame-war.
cheers,
sur-behoffski (Brenton Hoff)
Programmer, Grouse Software
