Re: Lua in NetBSD

[Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%panix.com@localhost>]

On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 10:48:36PM +0300, Antti Kantee wrote:
> 
> Where's your careful design?  "some cool things: <list>" is not a
> careful design.  Having a proprietary careful plan we can't see places a
> lot of trust in you (as well-placed as it might be).  A research project
> doing something similar is very interesting and I look forward to their
> results with great anticipation.  But what if their conclusion in a year
> is "it was a horrible idea and Y works much better"?
> 
> I don't even know why we are having this discussion.  If Lua-proponents
> would have done their homework properly and presented a coherent proposal
> a month later based on facts instead of could-be and can't-show, nobody
> would have to argue.

Perhaps if you want anyone to take you seriously you should stop moving
the goal posts.  Why would anyone go to any trouble to offer you a
"careful design" when you've previously said -- unless I misunderstood --
that you are only interested in seeing finished code?

As far as I can tell Marc wants some guidance from core, and his peers,
on general direction: is integrating Lua with NetBSD a good thing, or a
bad thing?  I think it's a good thing, as do, evidently, a number of
other developers, including one who actually prototyped it and offered
his patches for review.  We've had a reasonably useful discussion of some
of the things we could use Lua for if we had it in userspace or in the
kernel.  And then on the other hand you're standing across the way
getting, it seems to me, all worked up, putting words in the mouths of
those who disagree with you, and presenting, it seems to me, an
ever-changing list of objections and demands.

I don't think that's particularly helpful to anyone.  What do you want
to see?  A list of proposed applications, with details?  That, you have,
several in fact, from several developers.  A proposal for how to do the
actual integration of Lua into the system?  For userspace, Quentin's
offered a patch which works.  I haven't seen any comments on it.  I don't
think it makes sense to do any work on kernel integration until we have
userspace settled.  Or do you want to see actual working code for all the
applications people want to use Lua for?  Because if that's what you want,
I think it's something you're not likely to get.  Particularly not if it
looks as if, if you get it, you might just move the goal posts again as
you did above.

Thor