Re: What would you remove from Lua - a case of regression?

[Sean Conner <sean@...>]

It was thus said that the Great Dibyendu Majumdar once stated:
> Hi,
> 
> One of the difficulties of generating high performance code for Lua in
> a _naive_ way is that many op codes have a lot of branching. A simple
> add instruction may do:
> 
> if (isint(a) && isint(b))
>    integer add a, b
> else if (isfloat(a) && isfloat(b))
>    float add a, b
> else if (hasaddmeta(a) || hasaddmeta(b))
>    invoke meta add a, b
> 
> This is really inefficient when JIT compiled.

  There are languages that do type inference, where from the context of the
code it can determine the type of a variable.  So for instance, if all calls
to a function always pass in integers, you can specialize the code for that. 
For example, this function:

	-- written for Lua 5.1
	function fromjulianday(jd)
	  local a = jd + 32044
	  local b = math.floor((4 * a + 3) / 146097) 
	  local c = a - math.floor((b * 146097) / 4)
	  local d = math.floor((4 * c + 3) / 1461)
	  local e = c - math.floor((1461 * d) / 4)
	  local m = math.floor((5 * e + 2) / 153)
	  
	  return {
	    day   = e - math.floor((153 * m + 2) / 5) + 1,
	    month = m + 3 - 12 * math.floor((m / 10)),
	    year  = b * 100 + d - 4800 + math.floor(m / 10)
	  }
	end

  Given the presence of math.floor(), this indicates the code wants integer
results.  Also, jd is used as if an integer, so this function can be flagged
as taking an integer as its parameter.

  Now, having only heard of type inference (and very rarely used a language
that has it) I don't know how difficult this would be.

> * Eliminate metamethods except for __gc.

  I looked over my own code for uses of metatables.  I use them extensively
for userdata, very rarely for tables, and not at all for the other types. 
Furthermore, there are a few methods I've repeatedly used (for both, unless
otherwise noted):

	__mode		(table)
	__index
	__newindex
	__tostring	(userdata)
	__gc
	__len

  I did find one or two uses of the following in all my code:

	__call		(usedata)
	__add		(userdata [1])
	__sub		(userdata [1])
	__unm		(userdata [1])
	__eq		(userdata)
	__lt		(userdata)
	__le		(userdata)
	__concat	(userdata)

  But this is just my code.  Take it with a grain of salt.

  At the very least, consider keeping __mode (which is used in conjunction
with the garbage collector), and possibly making a cheap check for __index,
__newindex and __len (if possible).

> * No more coroutines

  This is a deal-breaker for me (more on this below).

> So back to only one number type. As you can imagine this would mean
> add can simply be:
> a + b
> 
> Now, I do not know how often people implement operator overloading -
> but given some languages do not have this feature it may not be a big
> loss.

  Personally, almost never.  But I do use LPeg (a lot) and that does use
operator overloading.  And again, for me, this would be a big loss.

> I personally can do without coroutines too, I am not sure how widely
> they are used; but the trade off is that we eliminate a bunch of
> complexity from mini Lua.

  I use them.  Maybe not as often as LPeg, but in the context I use them,
they are invaluable.  I use coroutines to implement servers.  A network
request comes on, I create a coroutine to handle that request.  A simple
echo service:

	local signal    = require "org.conman.signal"
	local nfl       = require "org.conman.nfl"
	local tcp       = require "org.conman.nfl.tcp"
	local addr,port = ...
	
	signal.catch('int')
	signal.catch('term')
	
	tcp.listen(addr or "0.0.0.0",port or 8000,function(ios)
	  repeat
	    local line = ios:read("*L") -- potential yield spot
	    ios:write(line) -- potential yield spot
	  until line == ""
	  ios:close()
	end)
	
	nfl.eventloop() -- this manages scheduling of coroutines

  It makes the actual code to handle the connection straightforward instead
of chopping it up into an incomprehensible nest of callback functions.

  There are a few other instances were coroutines are nice (such as the
Same Fringe Problem [3]) but for me, it's handling network services.  I
think this would be the common use for coroutines today.

  -spc

[1]	One module and that one related to signals [2], used to add and
	remove signals from a signal set (a POSIX thing).

[2]	https://github.com/spc476/lua-conmanorg/blob/master/src/signal.c

[3]	http://wiki.c2.com/?SameFringeProblem