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On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 12:58 Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile@majumdar.org.uk> wrote:
Hi Andrew,

On 18 April 2017 at 17:53, Andrew Starks <andrew@starksfam.org> wrote:
> Has something like the idea of a Lua Foundation ever come up?
>

I think maybe Lua's success / or unique selling point is that it has
no foundation, that it is not managed in a big way, and that it lacks
a huge set of standard libraries? Because of this someone like me can
take it and modify it, and use as I wish. Something like what I am
doing with Lua would be out of the question with other 'bigger' and
more ambitious languages.

Regards
Dibyendu

If the authors of Lua viewed it as a better Python, then they would have also seen fit to create or delegate the accoutrements that would be required to effectively replace those alternatives. They didn't and so none got made and no governance was offered. As a result, it would be ignored by the majority of people that currently use it. 

To accommodate a potential market that could easily be served by Lua as the kernel of an ecosystem, it requires a) someone to be bold enough to code whatever software might be required to put Lua in that spot, govern participation and evolve all of it as the market changes or b) a group of people to decide on a mission and a set of basic principles, prioritize a short list of required accomplishments and then divide the work. 

I think that would be a good thing for the world of software development because I believe that Lua elegantly solves a lot of thorny problems, especially in areas of concurrency. In my amateur opinion, Lua adds a great deal to computer science.  I wish that more people were exposed to it and that when they are exposed, that they wi chose it for their work. 

I'd like for that experience to be better for more people because I'm a bit of a fan.  :)

-Andrew