Re: Lua for Windows: Why not use LuaRocks instead?

["Mark Meijer" <meijer78@...>]

Also, Matt, you may have noticed the other discussion about LuaRocks
in Windows ;-) ... Personally, despite my previous hopes and wishes, I
don't feel it is currently a viable alternative for people who just
want to use Lua + some libs on windows. I don't see using the command
prompt as a problem at all. It's mostly just because a lot of modules
simply won't compile. Many more modules also require you to find,
download and build the library being wrapped. This is not a problem
specific to LuaRocks, but LuaRocks does not solve it either IMHO (at
least not yet).

Most of this is peanuts on Linux. Chances are that the library to be
wrapped is already included in the distro, or can be obtained with
your favorite package manager. Building is usually no problem either.
For the most part, it's a matter of typing "make" (or heaven forbid,
possibly even 2 words such as "make install") and you're done. I
really don't mind typing on the command line (grew up with one), but
sometimes I wonder about the sense of linux users who frown down on
windows users for wanting to point and click ;-) Anyway... point
being, just getting a module to compile and work on windows can be a
project on itself. For me, it's not what I want, when I'm just looking
to create something with Lua.

Cheers


2008/9/12 Andrew Wilson <agrwagrw@gmail.com>:
> Matt
>
> Original motivation of LfW was for single .exe  installer to allow
> people to easily try out Lua.  Linux mindset is build your own.
> Windows mindset is click to install, so LfW is tuned to click to
> install. LfW is more aimed at programmers interested in trying Lua as
> a standalone scripting language.
>
> LuaRocks is the right solution for building from source, but requires
> more tools (compilers,linkers), setup (libs,headers)  & runtime
> compatibilities to use.
>
> A goal for LfW is to work with LuaRocks. We're still trying to figure
> that all out.
>
> Cheers
> Andrew
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 11:05 AM, Matt Campbell <mattcampbell@pobox.com> wrote:
>> I've been watching the recent mailing list discussions on Lua for Windows.
>>  I wonder why there is a desire for this kind of "batteries included"
>> distribution, in light of LuaRocks.  It seems to me that instead of trying
>> to include every library under the moon, it would be better to just include
>> Lua, LuaRocks, and SciTE.  A GUI front-end to install rocks might be nice,
>> but then we're talking about a tool for programmers here; it seems to me
>> that a command-line interface shouldn't be a problem.  Thoughts?
>>
>> Matt
>>
>