Re: Non-Language Lua Gaps

[Lorenzo Donati <lorenzodonatibz@...>]

On 26/01/2020 20:06, Andrew Starks wrote:
> I've thrown off my disdain for the repetitive nature of this debate. I now
> accept that we will keep talking about "Lua with Batteries" until we
> eventually graduate to something like, "Why do Lua's batteries suck so bad?"

Lovely expressed! It's been my feeling for quite a long time.

I rolled my own solutions so many times because almost always I found 
the following inequality sadly true:

(
time to develop my solution +
time to debug later bugs +
time to learn how to adapt it to new problem +
time to cope with occasional crappiness of an half baked solution with 
spotty docs
)

<< (i.e. "much less than")

(
time to find a good library +
time to learn how to use it effectively +
time to contact its author when finding a bug and get it fixed (if 
possible) +
time to expand it when the author was not interested/available to adapt 
it to my needs or to fix bugs (i.e. abandonware issues) +
)

> [Lua's authors can speak for themselves, but I believe the following
> statements WRT Lua author's opinions are common knowledge within this
> mailing list. Where I've misrepresented something, I accept responsibility
> and welcome corrections.]
>
> 1. Author's Interest in setting/maintaining batteries
>
> Maintaining an ecosystem/set of batteries is not a goal of Lua's authors.
> They are not against it, but they do not want it to be their job to be
> directly involved in it. They also want it to be clear that something like
> this is not Lua, but an optional/independent layer on top of Lua.
>
> Someone / some organization is going to need to lead this, in mild
> coordination with team Lua, only to make sure the boundaries are set.
>
> 2. Author's Interest in Marketing / Evangelizing
>
> Having the right set of libraries is not enough, as we all know. Lua must
> be in people's faces, as Lua (not as WoW or Roblox's scripting language).
> Team Lua has published excellent papers in the ACM[1], but this kind of
> activity is not the same thing as what is needed here.
>
> To me, Evangelizing/Marketing efficiently means:
>
> * Identify the key attributes that make Lua uniquely attractive.
>   - Embeddable design: threading profile, low/no dependancies, integrates
> well with any concurrency model, configurable garbage collection, MIT
> license
>   - Small size
>   - Language sophistication and simplicity: concurrency becomes easy,
> complex data structures are simpler, it's very easy to create abstractions
> in the language, etc...
>   - ...
> * Identifying the best targets for adoption, which includes anything that
> must scale, is time-constrained, or requires a very small footprint:
>   - IoT
>   - Media/Broadcast/ProAV
>   - Gaming
>   - Robotics
>   - ...
> * Creating more chances for that target audience to become aware of Lua and
> its unique capabilities
>   - What tradeshows do these manufacturers and developers go to? Can we
> arrange speaking engagements?
>   - Who are the decision-makers within these organizations?
> * Governance
>   - Electing decision-makers
>   - Hosting regular meetings
>   - Setting priorities
>   - Raising money to support marketing activities and development.
>   - Holding people accountable
>   - Running a Lua Conference
>   - Doing all the dumb things you have to do in order to get real work done
> with people that different motivations, opinions, etc
>
> I think that this Governance is an important part of this.

This!

> Otherwise, we're
> going to need to wait until a sufficiently charismatic developer finds the
> passion and time to do it on their own and convinces enough of the right
> people to go along with them. Chances are good that whoever that person is,
> they'll have their own opinions about how Lua should be viewed and what
> it's good for. It may have nothing to do with what any of us thinks or it
> may be someone here who gets it just right.
>
> As much as we may dislike institutions, governance, asking for money and
> putting up with bull-crap, it may be an essential part of organizing
> people's efforts. It also beats repeating the same threads about the lack
> of batteries or waiting for a savior to come.

I agree almost completely with what you say in this post.

You expressed quite well what I tried to convey in past years when I 
brought up the subject (maybe in not always such a coherent way).

Just one thing about "Identifying the best targets for adoption":
I think it must be clarified if Lua is still intended to be a general 
purpose programming language for desktop systems.


Cheers!

-- Lorenzo