Moonscript Support?

[shakna-israel]

Moonscript makes writing Lua a lot less boilerplate-y.

Would support be possible at all?

Something like if a *.moon file is found in the usual directories, and moonc is in $PATH, try and compile them to Lua. (Probably only at launch).

Quick contrived example:

with Config
   -- Set the location of your Maildir folders, and your sent-folder
   \set( "maildir.prefix", os.getenv( "HOME" ) .. "/Maildir/" );
   \set( "global.sent-mail", os.getenv( "HOME" ) .. "/Maildir/sent/" )
   -- Set your outgoing mail-handler, and email-address:
   \set( "global.mailer", "/usr/lib/sendmail -t" )
   \set( "global.sender", "Some User <steve@example.com>" )
   -- Set your preferred editor
   \set( "global.editor", "vim  +/^$ ++1 '+set tw=72'" )

As opposed to:

 -- Set the location of your Maildir folders, and your sent-folder
 Config:set( "maildir.prefix", os.getenv( "HOME" ) .. "/Maildir/" );
 Config:set( "global.sent-mail", os.getenv( "HOME" ) .. "/Maildir/sent/" )

 -- Set your outgoing mail-handler, and email-address:
 Config:set( "global.mailer", "/usr/lib/sendmail -t" )
 Config:set( "global.sender", "Some User <steve@example.com>" )

 -- Set your preferred editor
 Config:set( "global.editor", "vim  +/^$ ++1 '+set tw=72'" )

[skx]

I'm not sure what the benefit would/could be? In your include example it doesn't save any configuration-option, or simplify the syntax to any useful extent.

(I must admit I've never looked at moonscript before, I might be missing something obvious.)

[shakna-israel]

More thinking from the user side of things, moonscript does tend to be somewhat popular, and compiles cleanly, so why not let the user use it?

But some things that a user might like are probably:

• String interpolation.
• Table comprehensions.

So if I were to go further with the incredibly contrived example:

  settings = {
    "maildir.prefix": "#{os.getenv("Home"}/Maildir/"
    "global.sent-mail": "#{os.getenv( "HOME" )}/Maildir/sent/"
    "global.mailer": "/usr/lib/sendmail -t"
    "global.sender": "Some User <steve@example.com>"
    "global.editor": "vim  +/^$ ++1 '+set tw=72'"
  }
  with Config
    [\set(k, v) for k,v in pairs(settings)]

[skx]

If it were a new project I think that argument would be more compelling.

As things stand 100% of the core, and user-scripts, are pure lua. Users are familiar with it, and it works well. There might be nice things, but changing just to gain string interpolation seems like a step too far.

Your sample could be just as easily a table in the current setup, obviously. But I appreciate that is contrived example.

I think I'll say wontfix because it would require a lot of documentation changes and churn for no obvious gain.

[shakna-israel]

I'm not suggesting a switch, or much changed behaviour.

Basically avoid adding this to my own config.lua

Something like:

if string.match(os.getenv("PATH"), "moonc") then
  local handle = io.popen("moonc" .. os.getenv("HOME") .. "/.config/lumail/*.moon")
  handle:close()
  handle = io.popen("moonc" .. os.getenv("HOME") .. "/.lumail/lumail/*.moon")
  handle:close()
  handle = io.popen("moonc" .. os.getenv("$XDG_CONFIG_HOME") .. "/lumail/*.moon")
  handle:close()
end

If a user wants to use moonscript, then they probably know what it is, and as it compiles to Lua, the API doesn't change.