Re: First class : (was Re: Regarding the name 'pairs')

[Mark Hamburg <mark@...>]

Of course, this all leads to the ulterior motive of making obj:method 
(...) more than just sugar for obj.method( obj, ... ).

The semantics of how to do that remain fuzzy and depend to some extent  
on the goals.

The simplest option is introducing a separate metatable entry which  
parallels __index but which will be used in preference to __index when  
doing method lookup. This alone makes it easier to implement  
properties/attributes on objects and catches many accidental uses of  
period rather than colon. But that then leads to questions such as  
whether there needs to be a corresponding method assignment metamethod  
and just how much complexity is warranted.

Mark