Wikipedia talk:Scribunto experimentation

Absolute idiot's guide

If we're doing this, we're going to need documentation for those of us with no knowledge of Lua - indeed, who are kind of rusty on a lot of programming. I've started documenting some of the lessons I've picked up learning from scratch at User:Wnt/Templates - obviously this is bottom bottom level, but I should point out that the existing manual ... needs a manual. Most of the quoted text that looks like code, for example, isn't code! Wnt (talk) 03:42, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Uncle G. ;) Wikipedia:Guide to Scribbling Wnt (talk) 01:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Debuggers?

Is there a way to get more useful error messages than "Script error", provided the Lua compiles but (as usual) I've fouled something up?

Also, are there existing functions to "debug" a variable in a module, i.e. to get the absolute maximum amount of information about every possible field that exists in it? I've started running some tests e.g. [1] (In this version I'm mystified why the array comes back empty, even though it has testable values I can record in the subroutine). Obviously though it'll be a long time till I have something, and surely someone must have seen a need for this already? Wnt (talk) 03:42, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Ahhhhhh - the brand-new Wikipedia:Guide to Scribbling now reminds me to enable scripts for the test2 site, at which point "script error" is a hyperlink. Wnt (talk) 01:30, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Novice question forum?

Maybe it's a little late, but I should ask, is this the forum for novice questions, and if not, should one be started? If you roll this out you'll have a lot of novices... Wnt (talk) 03:42, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Date templates

Would do with somethnig writing to replace en:Template:Birth date and age and others. Will have a look myself later on. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• There are no os.time() and os.date() functions available. They have been removed. Template:Indian population clock and Module:Population clocks show an inefficient workaround. Uncle G (talk) 13:01, 30 August 2012 (UTC)