Re: adding new modes

[Miles Bader]

"Juanma Barranquero" <address@hidden> writes:
>> I think it would be good if Emacs included "lua-mode.el"
>
> Sometime ago there was a request to include a ruby mode; though, truth
> be told, the standard ruby distribution already includes such a mode:

I don't know if lua-mode.el is a standard part of the lua distribution,
but there are signs that it is not (e.g. the fact that it's a separate
project on "luaforge").  [It's not part of the standard debian lua
install, though debian often splits things up more than usual.]

In any case, I don't think it matters very much:  lua is very common as
an extension/embedded language, so there are many programs for which one
might want to write some lua code, without having lua "installed" per se
(lua is so small that it's often linked statically, so you don't even
necessarily have lua libraries around)!

I think it would be great if Emacs would "just work" for such cases.

Indeed, even with more heavyweight languages where it's more common for
users to explicitly install the langage, I think there are enough issues
with separately distributed modes that it's nice to also include them
with Emacs when practical (the ruby developers seem to agree since they
requested the inclusion...).

-miles

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