Re: Thought experiment: what would you remove from Lua

[Francisco Olarte <folarte@...>]

On Sat, Sep 8, 2018 at 7:25 AM, Axel Kittenberger <axkibe@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It would break everything, but I'd remove the top-level function keyword
>> entirely, with the side effects. 2 more keystrokes for `=` in free
>> functions, plus 4 for `self` in methods.
> The issue is with recursive functions. You can't do that simply with the
> "name = function()" syntax.

Is this true? The manual says translation for "local function" is made
in a certain way to allow self references, and in my machine:
Lua 5.3.3  Copyright (C) 1994-2016 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> a=function(x) print(x); if x>0 then a(x-1); end end
> a(3)
3
2
1
0

F.O.S.
( Note/disclaimer: I  like function a(x) better )