Lua in the bootloader

[Rui Paulo]

On Aug 24, 2014, at 15:53, <dteske at FreeBSD.org> <dteske at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> 
> Hey List,
> 
> Looks like the Lua Loader GSoC project went well as I'm
> sure a lot of projects did (including my own student's).
> 
> I had some time to review the Lua Loader GSoC project
> results (code-wise) and provide in-depth, detailed feed-
> back on a hypothetical proposition: keeping Forth but
> making Lua the default.
> 
> I'm not against the proposition, quite the contrary. The
> limitations that I battle in Forth are significant enough
> that I'd like to see if Lua can break said chains (such as
> "dictionary full" errors causing BTX halt -- induced simply
> by adding "too many functions" in Forth).
> 
> Please read below my comments which the GSoC
> student (Pedro Arthur <bygrandao at gmail.com>)
> and mentor (Wojciech A. Koszek <wkoszek at freebsd.org>)
> wanted me to share with the mailing lists (I chose
> -hackers).

I have read some of your comments and I don't have much to add.

However, being the guy who broke the boot loader (BTX halted, Forth dictionary full, unable to recover) while trying to do something simple at work, I cannot say how much I'd love to get rid of forth.  Forth is a language that only a few people care about and that's terrible for an open source project.  It's time we find a good alternative without disrupting the boot process much. 

I'd be happy to help reviewing any patch that helps bringing Lua as a replacement for Forth.

--
Rui Paulo