> already installed on a large fraction of machines
So far you've presented no evidence of this though, just that it's used by a new desktop-focused package.
All linux desktops over the last 30 years is not even a "large fraction" of total Linux installs, much less the ones that have already migrated to this new audio system.
> adding the interpreter is not a big cost
It's nothing to do with cost. It's about "how do I know this will absolutely 100% run on any POSIX machine I throw it on without any extra steps".
Remember the argument here is about something that is claimed to be "objectively better" than Shell. The ubiquitous nature of POSIX shell is a huge barrier for any possible competitor, and saying "well you just need to install it" just defeats the purpose. You might as well write it in fucking java and say "well you just need to install a JVM".
Edit to Add:
a good number of systems I manage do have liblua installed... because HAProxy requires it, and those systems have HAProxy installed. Not because it was installed as part of the base OS or even a default group of packages.
Incidentally, HAProxy and thus liblua were installed on those systems by infrastructure management that's implemented as shell script. So what kind of chicken and egg argument do we need to have here about how exactly I can run a Lua script to install Lua?
So far you've presented no evidence of this though, just that it's used by a new desktop-focused package.
All linux desktops over the last 30 years is not even a "large fraction" of total Linux installs, much less the ones that have already migrated to this new audio system.
> adding the interpreter is not a big cost
It's nothing to do with cost. It's about "how do I know this will absolutely 100% run on any POSIX machine I throw it on without any extra steps".
Remember the argument here is about something that is claimed to be "objectively better" than Shell. The ubiquitous nature of POSIX shell is a huge barrier for any possible competitor, and saying "well you just need to install it" just defeats the purpose. You might as well write it in fucking java and say "well you just need to install a JVM".
Edit to Add: a good number of systems I manage do have liblua installed... because HAProxy requires it, and those systems have HAProxy installed. Not because it was installed as part of the base OS or even a default group of packages.
Incidentally, HAProxy and thus liblua were installed on those systems by infrastructure management that's implemented as shell script. So what kind of chicken and egg argument do we need to have here about how exactly I can run a Lua script to install Lua?