Re: [ANN] Lua 5.2.0 (beta-rc1) now available

[Jerome Vuarand <jerome.vuarand@...>]

2011/6/15 Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>:
> "Joseph Manning" <manning@cs.ucc.ie> writes:
>> The whole point here is to use a keyword.  That keyword does not need
>> to be the actual word "label".
>>
>> Alternatives include
>>    "spot", "point", "place", "target", "location", "destination", ...
>>
>> No doubt any choice could cause breakage for *some* existing programs,
>> but it's a matter of the best *overall* way forward for Lua users.
>
> Why do you think a keyword would be better?
>
> AFAICS, a keyword would be worse:  besides the obvious problem of
> messing up some peoples' programs, it would make labels significantly
> less visible (no, highlighting by editors isn't sufficient), and we
> _want_ labels to be highly visible.

That "we" is not everybody. I for one don't want labels to be more
visibel than other statements. The simple fact that they are usually
indented differently makes them stand out, and an all lowercase short
keyword is much more comfortable to read to some of us than an @.

> Even though Lua uses keywords in many places, it's certainly not
> necessary that it use keywords for _everything_.

It's not necessary, but IMHO consistency makes the language elegant.