From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 16 11:25:04 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F345F1065673 for ; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:25:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ivoras@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qw0-f54.google.com (mail-qw0-f54.google.com [209.85.216.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9ED158FC19 for ; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:25:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qwg5 with SMTP id 5so5570383qwg.13 for ; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:25:02 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:mime-version:sender:received :in-reply-to:references:from:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id :subject:to:cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=+SDADoCeGQtv8uTnthLVDG03bPAtO9NaJLnuR+nexhM=; b=lgWLoZIU/7zZk7W6XBHSfck0Zrf1aw2IF+sFF8Gh7ogkdMBLXkB8oeY43z+u4cweO2 9BP8dSWmMFcZAFDHUP9wTv6LQaZPNS8ol9KtIQmkNDF8M64dhrvk5DTWPHVcTV+0DJIq ss8JSdabwKp5O6ldTCA02uZ8Nj7Hdw7Res0V8= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=rQC01dCpoqGDi1d+Y1Nf8H9OtPAEiRF8d/wo8MmXLQgBNPQSG7lBNiLtLKoYEfn8ds UBhxN9jFINtU2GUdkxpLe1RL2wlQ/NWO59epPVN4JxXmnJw34rcqtDU56GxZQmbWM3MF 7d1w/VvG/Nel9u4w2YQ1/wIgzYT8kxir+DKPc= Received: by 10.229.213.80 with SMTP id gv16mr3530860qcb.134.1281957781168; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:23:01 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: ivoras@gmail.com Received: by 10.229.236.132 with HTTP; Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:22:41 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <86ocd3apzl.fsf@ds4.des.no> References: <4C6505A4.9060203@FreeBSD.org> <4C650B75.3020800@FreeBSD.org> <4C651192.9020403@FreeBSD.org> <4C673898.2080609@FreeBSD.org> <86ocd3apzl.fsf@ds4.des.no> From: Ivan Voras Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:22:41 +0200 X-Google-Sender-Auth: nhh5QmE6QF90oRQ3AeskPTYDweI Message-ID: To: =?UTF-8?Q?Dag=2DErling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Interpreted language(s) in the base X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:25:04 -0000 2010/8/16 Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav : > Doug Barton writes: >> lua =C2=A0 too "flavor of the day," not enough track record of stability= , >> =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 not enough installed base/proven utility > > You're wrong. =C2=A0Lua has been around for ages and is especially widely > used as a game scripting engine. =C2=A0It is not intended as a standalone > language, but as an embeddable scripting engine. =C2=A0We could easily cr= eate > our own scripting language based on lua with FreeBSD-specific functions, > and there would be no fear of interfering with third-party software, > because it wouldn't be called lua. Replying randomly to this post but also to phk's, dougb's and others' points specifically about lua: 1. "churn" / version stability / "language of the day" History of lua's recent releases is: - 5.2 : TBD, new yet unfinished release, "will be done when it is done" - 5.1 : 2006. - 5.0 : 2003. - 4.0 : 2000. ... - 1.0 : 1993. [source: http://www.lua.org/versions.html] If anything, it's much slower than the "hip" languages. 2. Future compatibility / ports dependancies, etc. If anything gets imported, lua or something else, I will loudly support renaming it to something like "bsdscript", binaries and libraries and all. 3. Size of language Lua *is* 32 C files (and as many C headers) in a single directory, totalling (with headers) a bit over 17,000 lines. The interpreter can be compiled with "gcc -o bsdscript *.c". Libraries can be built similarly. There are no other libraries or modules which "make" lua, Among the mentioned above are equivalents of stdio, libm, libz, etc. 4. Embeddability Here's the documentation: http://www.lua.org/pil/24.1.html Personally, I'm more interested in the opposite direction: writing FreeBSD-specific lua libraries (which would wrap, as an obvious example coming from me, libgeom) making it possible to script complex system scripts in lua. 5. License Released under MIT license: http://www.lua.org/license.html