Re: Are automatic coercions ever going away?

[Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@...>]

> Is there any plan to remove these from the language at some point? It would
> allow the authors to simplify the language, as well as remove the
> possibility yet another type of user error. I understand the removal
> process involves deprecation as a first-step, but I also understand that
> Lua is not afraid to break a little backwards-compatibility now and then
> for the sake of simplifying the language.

In the end, it seems that this "little backwards-compatibility" is far
from little; these coersions happen in several unexpected places.
(For instance, the pattern "%d+" does not capture numbers, but numerals.
Similarly, os.date("%j") does not return a number with the day of
the year, but a numeral.) So, for now, the plans to deprecate some
coercions are suspended.

-- Roberto