Re: Lua 5.3

[Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws () gmail com>]

On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 9:47 AM, João Valverde <joao.valverde@tecnico.
ulisboa.pt> wrote:

> On 08/20/2016 02:06 PM, João Valverde wrote:
>
> > On 08/20/2016 02:03 PM, João Valverde wrote:
> >
> > > I think there is a disconnect here because you are seeing Lua as a
> > > system dependency. I see it as Wireshark's own embedded language
> > > interpreter (although developed by the Lua team under a suitable
> > > license).
> > >
> > > (Sorry for my brevity, I really appreciate your input).
> >
> > I also meant to add that it would be better to rip-off the compatibility
> > band-aid, IMO, if the 5.3 features justify the upgrade.
>
> I'm not aware of any policy that says our Lua dialect and APIs must be
> stable forever. That's nice, I don't like fixing working code as much as
> the next person, but sometimes reality intervenes. It would be difficult to
> provide that guarantee, seeing as Lua 5.2 is already unmaintained upstreams.


 I think you're correct that there isn't any policy.  Maybe there should be.

I really don't have a problem with C API changes.  For many years I
maintained a set of C dissectors for proprietary protocols that were not
really of general interest (and anyway I really did not want to even think
about jumping through the hoops that would be necessary to get my employer
to allow submitting the changes).  I figured that my penance for that "sin"
was having to update them regularly as the API changed.  (IOW in general I
think C dissectors should be contributed to Wireshark--if you don't then
you get to live with the pain. :-))

But I think Lua dissectors are different.  (I would think) it's a different
type of person writing them and the distribution model is different--I
think it would be painful if Lua dissector writers have to start saying
"this version is compatible with Wireshark 2.0-2.2, this other version is
compatible with 2.4-2.6."  Would it even make sense to have a Lua
equivalent to the VERSION_MAJOR, etc., macros (that I used in C code to
make one dissector compatible with several versions of Wireshark)?

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