[asterisk-dev] LUA in Asterisk. was [svn-commits] tilghman: trunk r88250 - in /trunk: ./ build_tools/ configs/ include/asterisk...

[Victor Sergeev]

Dmitry Andrianov wrote:
>> As LUA is already in Asterisk tree and will be in the next stable
>> release it seems to be an obvious choice for any new dialplan.
>>     
>
> That is very personal, subjective opinion, you know. I have strong
> experience with ANY language you named except for LUA. To be honest, I
> haven't ever heard about LUA before this patch. 
>
>   
Its not widely used for general purpose programming but its greatly used
as embedded language. Many game engines use it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_(programming_language)
http://www.lua.org

> Speaking about Asterisk users, a lot of people already know AEL. How
> many of them know LUA? Yes AEL is not "fully featured" programming
> language and yes it is not ideal. But it is much closer to "regular"
> programming languages then original dialplan and also it is well known
> by Asterisk community. This is why I believe there is no need what to
> support - AEL or LUA - they can peacefully coexist.
>
>   
Check extensions.lua written in Lua:
http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/trunk/configs/extensions.lua.sample?view=markup&pathrev=88250

Its pretty obvious what it does. If you know Perl, AEL... its just a
matter of minutes to figure out how to re-write any AEL dialplan in LUA.


> Speaking about myself I would probably prefer Perl because of its
> widespread and a lot of experience people have with it + huge amount of
> libraries.
>
> Regards,
> Dmitry Andrianov
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-dev-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-dev-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Victor
> Sergeev
> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 12:38 AM
> To: Asterisk Developers Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-dev] LUA in Asterisk. was [svn-commits] tilghman:
> trunk r88250 - in /trunk: ./ build_tools/ configs/ include/asterisk...
>
> Tilghman Lesher wrote:
>   
>> On Saturday 03 November 2007 06:57:56 Victor Sergeev wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>>  That's a great feature!
>>>
>>> Does it mean that Digium decided to replace AEL with LUA?
>>>     
>>>       
>> No.
>>   
>>     
> I didn't mean literally but as a best practice for writing dial plans.
>   
>>   
>>     
>>> It seems there'll be no sense to use AEL anymore if you can do the
>>>       
> same in
>   
>>> real programming language.
>>>     
>>>       
>> Are you saying that users shouldn't have a choice?
>>   
>>     
> I think the choice is really between two ways of describing dialplan:
> original extensions.conf syntax
> and dial plan described with some programing language like LUA, Python,
> Perl, PHP, JS, etc.
> It doesn't really matter what language it is, only matters how well it
> is supported in Asterisk
> and its popularity among community.
>
> Dial plans written in one of the languages from the second group or in
> AEL will look _very_ similar.
> The significant difference is that LUA, Python, Perl, etc. are full
> featured languages with thousands of libraries
> and AEL is rather limited.
>
> LUA is already in Asterisk tree and will be in the next stable
> release it seems to be an obvious choice for any new dialplan.
>   
>>   
>>     
>>> It's strange that such major feature was added without any discussion
>>>       
> with
>   
>>> development community (Nov 1 patch submitted, next day it is in the
>>>       
> trunk).
>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> Here's your chance.  Discuss.
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> Recently was discussed a topic about release cycle. IMO Asterisk
>>>       
> should
>   
>>> have a roadmap for every release and such kind of addition should be
>>> planned and announced to community.
>>>     
>>>       
>> We don't roadmap, because we have no idea what code will be submitted
>>     
> to us
>   
>> during each development cycle.  Asterisk is strongly
>>     
> community-oriented as to
>   
>> its direction.  Submissions of new code are always welcome.
>>
>>   
>>     
> To have a roadmap doesn't contradict to be community-oriented. Community
> may define what it wants to see
> in the next release and work on these goals. That will greatly help
> Asterisk users/developers with their
> migration/development plans. Any community submission beyond the roadmap
> surely can be accepted in
> the tree if they are going to be stable at the time of the release or at
> least not affect the stability of core features.
>   
>> We did not know LUA was coming, but once it arrived, we added it.  If
>>     
> you want
>   
>> to submit a properly licensed implementation of the dialplan in
>>     
> another
>   
>> language, go right ahead.
>>   
>>     
> As I wrote above there is not too much difference in writing dialplan
> using LUA, Perl, Python, etc.
> and initially its better to put effort on making one of them stable and
> full featured.
>
>
>
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