Re: S.W.O.T analysis

[Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@...>]

> Everybody has to rewrite stuff like keys() (aka invert) which is
> a double-burden for beginners: they have to build their own light
> saber, and they have to recognize these patterns in other people's
> code and figure out what it's called there.
...
> Beginner-friendly doesn't mean everybody has to use the same
> stuff, but the efforts to get "best current extensions" together in
> one distro are a significant aid to learning how to use the language
> to Get Things Done.

I'm in favour of a library like Microlight which supplies invert() etc.
(That thread has gone too quiet.)  Yet …

Figuring out patterns in other people's code is only unfriendly
to the rankest of beginners.  The skill thus acquired pays off
a hundredfold later.  I have slowly come to the conclusion that
the amount of do-it-yourself required, like so much else in Lua,
hits just the right tradeoff between being spoon-fed and learning,
between having to read docs and just coding.