Re: Lua and backwards compatibility - was Re: [ANN] Lua 5.3.4 (rc2) now available,

[Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile@...>]

Hi Peter,

On 12 January 2017 at 15:23, Peter Aronoff <telemachus@arpinum.org> wrote:
> Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile@majumdar.org.uk> wrote:
>> Would it not be better though if you could upgrade to the next version
>> without having to change things?
>
> I think you mean this to be a rhetorical question: the answer to you seems
> to be an obvious yes. I can understand some reasons why you might think
> that. Less work is better. Stability is nice.
>
> But I don’t think it’s a rhetorical question (really), and I don’t think
> the answer is obvious. There are always trade offs—you hint at this below
> when you talk about C++. If a guarantee of backwards compatibility hinders
> the progress of a language or forces significant compromises in how the
> language evolves, then I think the answer to your question tilts towards
> “No.” Of course, opinions will differ.
>

Sure there are trade offs, and I accept that. I think Lua is a mature
language; for a young language, it may be necessary to make breaking
changes to correct serious issues. I hope that serious issues with Lua
have already been fixed. Hence the trade off towards a better
compatibility guarantee seems worth making.

Regards
Dibyendu