Re: Breakthrough dream

[Tim Hill <drtimhill@...>]

> On Mar 25, 2017, at 12:26 PM, Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 2017-03-25 15:04 GMT+02:00 Rodrigo Azevedo <rodrigoams@gmail.com>:
> 
>> Based on the thread 'Selenophobia', and your major experience, choose 5
>> characteristics you think indispensable to keep Lua advancing as a
>> "general-purpose script language";
>> 
>> 1) an expanded basic library (some batteries), well organized, maintained
>> and documented. "Pure Lua" libraries at least.
>> 2) easy installation on major operating systems (with shared libraries)
>> 3) threads (pthreads!? not Lua's coroutine)
>> 4) optional type annotations (performance, error check etc)
>> 5) easy, transparent, way to port libraries to new versions of Lua.
>> 
>> Is this possible to start, organize and support for a long period ( a
>> 'larger' community)?
> 
> This does sound a bit like someone who wishes to enlarge the listening
> public of a radio station that broadcasts classical music, and comes
> with suggestions like:
> 
> * breezy disc jockeys
> * short, snappy pieces instead of those interminable symphonies
> * phone-in discussion programmes
> * jazz is fine music too, isn't it?
> 

That’s not really a fair analogy .. it would apply if people where suggesting drastic changes to the language itself. They are not. They are doing something much more akin to suggesting adding another aisle to the grocery store for ready-to-eat meals for those people who don’t want to cook from scratch every day. (Though btw I also despise the dilution of classical music stations in the manner you note.)

Their point is a practical and valid one. Using Lua in any large production programming project is a complex business (I speak from experience). Getting Lua compiled and integrated is trivial. Extending it with the necessary support libraries is VERY non-trivial. More so, i think, than the maintainers of Lua realize. We devoted a full 5+ man-years building out the necessary libraries and support to get to the point where we could deploy Lua in our systems.

—Tim