Re: A tricky way to determine Lua version (updated)

[Andrew Starks <andrew@...>]

> On Jul 23, 2020, at 12:56, Philippe Verdy <verdyp@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Beside obviously funny code like {1, [1]=2}, the issue is more serious with this code, not created just for fun by hackers:
> 
> { [k(1)] = v(1), [k(2)] = v(2) }

I can’t tell your tone through email but this seems like a lot of arm waving about the crappy code that programmers can write. If someone showed me this code in production, without tons of comments or proof of prior sanity checks, I would throw up into my mouth a little. It’s just crappy code. 

Lua is a scripting language, but it’s unique because it’s so tiny and simple. It has well documented undefined behavior where other languages give you guarantees about order and errors when it thinks you’re doing something stupid.

It’s fine. Just because you can do breathtakingly dumb things with it, doesn’t mean you can’t write correct code and be productive with it. 

You can keep waving your arms around but there isn’t any evidence of this being a real problem. 

-Andrew Starks