4 ms·

Don't we have already Lua for that? It even has a state-of-the-art JIT compiler. I am all in for competition, but I can't see how both of these languages could

Don't we have already Lua for that? It even has a state-of-the-art JIT compiler. I am all in for competition, but I can't see how both of these languages could improve over Lua.

lasagnaphil 8y ago
Although LuaJIT is crazy fast, it can't be used on iOS, so we first need to compare this with the unJITted version of Lua. Lua is pretty simple and elegant, but has its woes on being too flexible and wonky (especially with nil and global variables). It also doesn't support OOP syntax directly, so everyone started to create their own wonky class system, which broke easily because of Lua's wonkiness. Gravity seems like a good embedding language packaging a nice OOP syntax with a lot of syntactic sugar (such as properties and access specifiers), so I think some UI/game developers would choose this over Lua.
- ainar-g 8y ago
  I see your point, although I would probably use something like mruby[1] if I wanted something embeddable and OO. [1] http://mruby.org/ http://mruby.org/
  - lasagnaphil 8y ago
    I've also looked at mruby, but the language seemed quite complex. (It claims to have a Ruby compatible syntax, but also has its strange warts.) It doesn't help that its documentation is rather poor. Also by looking at the issues section I was pretty scared about the bugs that might come up while using this (https://github.com/mruby/mruby/issues https://github.com/mruby/mruby/issues). If there was any successful usage of it in game development I would have jumped in, but so far I haven't found any.
- api 8y ago
  Can anything interesting be used on iOS?
  - lasagnaphil 8y ago
    There are some nice non-JIT embedded languages such as Angelscript (resembles C++, uses refcounting instead of GC), Squirrel (extension of Lua syntax to support classes and other nice features), and recently Wren (has a nice class system and uses fibers for concurrency).
    - api 8y ago
      Does Apple still prohibit any form of downloaded code or scripting or did they finally ease that?
      - 0xCMP 8y ago
        They do if the user can download and execute the code themselves. If the underlying app uses it (e.g. React Native app downloads updated bundle) and user can't touch it then it's okay.
    - megous 8y ago
      Wren looks interesting. It stands out by the lack of use of setjmp/longjmp for error handling. It's probably side effect of being able to return/suspend fiber from any call stack depth.
  - rurban 8y ago
    Haxe is the leader there, besides swift.
- sitkack 8y ago
  >it can't be used on iOS LuaJIT interpreter which is _faster_ can be used on iOS. So you would use an immature language everywhere because you can't use the fastest implementation on one platform (iOS), when infact, the LuaJIT interpreter is the fastest interpreter of any dynamic language on all platforms. Wonkiness is not a substantive claim. How do class systems break because of it?
  - TooBrokeToBeg 8y ago
    Magic methods are wonky. Things that get called, although they don't exist, have to traverse an arbitrary system to determine an implementation (may or may not exist). Now add that you can determine that system of traversal, at runtime. Now add arbitrary constraints like 42 local vars per scope, singular inefficient table, no switch (but currying is ok, certainly one of these is more confusing than the other in every CS class) ultimately forcing some wonkiness in every project. It's truly a strange confluence of features leading to an even dumber javascript. I use Lua a lot.
    - samatman 8y ago
      Different strokes I guess. I consider Lua's type system almost mathematical in its elegance. For my taste, Lua is the penultimate dynamic language, held back only by the unforgivable Wirth-style indexing from 1. The one place where I simply must correct you is in calling tables inefficient. LuaJIT's implementation, as interpreted, is demonstrably among the fastest general-purpose container classes in widespread use.
- armitron 8y ago
  Of course it can be used on iOS, there are commercial applications that do exactly that. You can turn off the JIT and you're left with probably the fastest interpreter for a dynamic language that currently exists. LuaJIT is state-of-the-art even without the JIT. A lot of people miss this and go down various rabbit holes only to come up with something that's significantly worse. Personally, given what I just described, I don't see how Gravity compares at all favorably to Lua.
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Ok, find me a Lua compiler for my ARM Coretx M4 that can spool up its VM on my chip, run my C functions natively, and takes less than 30k ROM. There is a difference here where 1/2 people something iphone can run, and the other half want something that would run on a small 32bit. I want a scripting VM with an FFI. Lua while supposed to be able to do that just isn’t supported by anyone for that purpose.
- chillingeffect 8y ago
  I think you might be served by elua, embedded lua. I haven't used it myself, but it looks pretty active. https://github.com/elua/elua https://github.com/elua/elua P.s. the cortex m4 is awesome!
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    eLua is dead though. Shot itself by trying to be a C replacement. If an embedded Lang for embedded micro has system headers to allow you to stay in the embedded Lang - it’s not going anywhere.

Don't we have already Lua for that? It even has a state-of-the-art JIT compiler. I am all in for competition, but I can't see how both of these languages could improve over Lua.

lasagnaphil 8y ago

Although LuaJIT is crazy fast, it can't be used on iOS, so we first need to compare this with the unJITted version of Lua. Lua is pretty simple and elegant, but has its woes on being too flexible and wonky (especially with nil and global variables). It also doesn't support OOP syntax directly, so everyone started to create their own wonky class system, which broke easily because of Lua's wonkiness. Gravity seems like a good embedding language packaging a nice OOP syntax with a lot of syntactic sugar (such as properties and access specifiers), so I think some UI/game developers would choose this over Lua.

ainar-g 8y ago
I see your point, although I would probably use something like mruby[1] if I wanted something embeddable and OO. [1] http://mruby.org/ http://mruby.org/
- lasagnaphil 8y ago
  I've also looked at mruby, but the language seemed quite complex. (It claims to have a Ruby compatible syntax, but also has its strange warts.) It doesn't help that its documentation is rather poor. Also by looking at the issues section I was pretty scared about the bugs that might come up while using this (https://github.com/mruby/mruby/issues https://github.com/mruby/mruby/issues). If there was any successful usage of it in game development I would have jumped in, but so far I haven't found any.
api 8y ago
Can anything interesting be used on iOS?
- lasagnaphil 8y ago
  There are some nice non-JIT embedded languages such as Angelscript (resembles C++, uses refcounting instead of GC), Squirrel (extension of Lua syntax to support classes and other nice features), and recently Wren (has a nice class system and uses fibers for concurrency).
  - api 8y ago
    Does Apple still prohibit any form of downloaded code or scripting or did they finally ease that?
    - 0xCMP 8y ago
      They do if the user can download and execute the code themselves. If the underlying app uses it (e.g. React Native app downloads updated bundle) and user can't touch it then it's okay.
  - megous 8y ago
    Wren looks interesting. It stands out by the lack of use of setjmp/longjmp for error handling. It's probably side effect of being able to return/suspend fiber from any call stack depth.
- rurban 8y ago
  Haxe is the leader there, besides swift.
sitkack 8y ago
>it can't be used on iOS LuaJIT interpreter which is _faster_ can be used on iOS. So you would use an immature language everywhere because you can't use the fastest implementation on one platform (iOS), when infact, the LuaJIT interpreter is the fastest interpreter of any dynamic language on all platforms. Wonkiness is not a substantive claim. How do class systems break because of it?
- TooBrokeToBeg 8y ago
  Magic methods are wonky. Things that get called, although they don't exist, have to traverse an arbitrary system to determine an implementation (may or may not exist). Now add that you can determine that system of traversal, at runtime. Now add arbitrary constraints like 42 local vars per scope, singular inefficient table, no switch (but currying is ok, certainly one of these is more confusing than the other in every CS class) ultimately forcing some wonkiness in every project. It's truly a strange confluence of features leading to an even dumber javascript. I use Lua a lot.
  - samatman 8y ago
    Different strokes I guess. I consider Lua's type system almost mathematical in its elegance. For my taste, Lua is the penultimate dynamic language, held back only by the unforgivable Wirth-style indexing from 1. The one place where I simply must correct you is in calling tables inefficient. LuaJIT's implementation, as interpreted, is demonstrably among the fastest general-purpose container classes in widespread use.
armitron 8y ago
Of course it can be used on iOS, there are commercial applications that do exactly that. You can turn off the JIT and you're left with probably the fastest interpreter for a dynamic language that currently exists. LuaJIT is state-of-the-art even without the JIT. A lot of people miss this and go down various rabbit holes only to come up with something that's significantly worse. Personally, given what I just described, I don't see how Gravity compares at all favorably to Lua.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

Ok, find me a Lua compiler for my ARM Coretx M4 that can spool up its VM on my chip, run my C functions natively, and takes less than 30k ROM. There is a difference here where 1/2 people something iphone can run, and the other half want something that would run on a small 32bit. I want a scripting VM with an FFI. Lua while supposed to be able to do that just isn’t supported by anyone for that purpose.

chillingeffect 8y ago
I think you might be served by elua, embedded lua. I haven't used it myself, but it looks pretty active. https://github.com/elua/elua https://github.com/elua/elua P.s. the cortex m4 is awesome!
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  eLua is dead though. Shot itself by trying to be a C replacement. If an embedded Lang for embedded micro has system headers to allow you to stay in the embedded Lang - it’s not going anywhere.