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fwiw, the only reason Lua is a decent language nowadays is that it was able to evolve in a backwards incompatible way. If we had frozen the language back in the

• kephra 12y ago
  The main reason Lua stayed small, is that its developed as an open source, closed shop software. I'm using my own PHP microframework called DataFace for over 20 years. Nearly no two applications share the same DataFace code, each of them is a little bit different. My current DataFace can create dynamic AJAX forms, but its still less then 1000 lines, because its my open source, closed shop code, where I'm able to cut dead branches, to grow new flowers. I stopped using Turbo Pascal, C++ or TCL, because backwards incompatibility. A language implementation like Turbo Pascal, C++ or TCL is outside of my application scope. Any operating system distribution update could break compilation of my code anytime. It did and I decided for my self to avoid those language. But its a total different case with Lua, or my own DataFace microframework, because those are inside of my application. The Lua interpreter code is not some library coming from operting system distribution, but a shared lib, I ship with my code, and a source code tree within my own application. My old applications do not need to care, if something in Lua 5.3 breaks them. But I can investigate the new features for next application.