[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Bug#604972: ITP: lua5.2 -- Simple, extensible, embeddable programming language



Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: "John V. Belmonte" <jbelmonte@debian.org>


* Package name    : lua5.2
  Version         : 5.2.0
  Upstream Author : Lua Team <team@lua.org>
* URL             : http://www.lua.org/
* License         : MIT
  Programming Lang: C
  Description     : Simple, extensible, embeddable programming language

Lua is a powerful, light-weight programming language designed for extending
applications.  The language engine is accessible as a library, having a C
API which allows the application to exchange data with Lua programs and also
to extend Lua with C functions.  Lua is also used as a general-purpose,
stand-alone language through the simple command line interpreter provided.

Lua 5.2 is currently in alpha.  To those who will otherwise object to
"too many Lua source packages", some reminders of why we need to add this
new source package while maintaining old versions:

    * Lua point releases (5.0, 5.1, etc.) are major releases, with backwards
      incompatibilities in the C API, language, and standard libraries.  The
      last major release (5.1) was about 5 years ago.

    * Lua is commonly used to extend applications, and such applications, and
      moreover the scripts written by the application users, necessarily
      depend on a specific major version.  Upgrading applications to new
      versions is not trivial.  Furthermore, due to the power and virtually
      complete lack of bugs inherent in even old Lua versions, there is often
      little reason for applications to upgrade.



Reply to: