Re: Desired Lua Features

[Sean Conner <sean@...>]

It was thus said that the Great Paige DePol once stated:
> 
> So, if you could add any one feature to Lua right now, what would that
> feature be and why would you want to see it added? Please note that this
> discussion is in no way meant to be interpreted as pressuring Team Lua to
> add any features to Lua, I am genuinely curious what features people want
> to see added to Lua and why.

  Right now---breakpoints.  Every CPU I've programmed has had such a
feature.  The x86 has INT3, the MC68000 has TRAPn, MIPS the BREAK, the 6502
BRK, the 6809 SWI, etc.  I would like to see a Lua VM opcode that does the
same thing, which could be used to avoid the overhead of hooks (the Lua
program can run full speed until the breakpoint is hit).  

  Some API in the debug module would probably have to be made to support
this, but it's something I feel would be nice.  Even something as simple as
tripping on a function call:

	debug.setbreakpoint(target_function,code_to_run)

where code_to_run() can then do the full hooks method if further detail was
needed.

  -spc