7 ms·

Lua is the only language I can truly say I love. If more people used it (and used it responsibly, not letting it become a mess of odd libraries), the world woul

Lua is the only language I can truly say I love. If more people used it (and used it responsibly, not letting it become a mess of odd libraries), the world would be a better place.

Sebb767 5y ago
> Lua is the only language I can truly say I love Why? I've worked with Lua before and to me it's not a bad language, but nothing special either. I'm honestly wondering.
- pansa2 5y ago
  Not OP, but for me, I love Lua because it’s both easy-to-use and simple. Python is the former and Go is the latter, but I don’t know any other mainstream language that’s both.
- friedturkey 5y ago
  It has all the power of something like Python, but is much faster and with far less cruft and basically no confusing elements. You’re given a small set of tools and it’s incredibly easy to build off them.
  - chii 5y ago
    > basically no confusing elements. the one confusing element - one-based indexing of arrays! that is something i found hard to adjust, as it makes off-by-one errors more prominent... but otherwise it's a nice language.
    - toastercat 5y ago
      That's not really confusing though, just takes a bit of unlearning the muscle memory of 0-based indexing.
    - donatj 5y ago
      I certainly prefer 0-indexed these days, but starting on 1-indexed languages (A variety of BASIC’s) I found 0-indexing just as weird.
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      I agree, that's the one unfortunate flaw of Lua I'd go back in time and change if I were Hitler With a Time Machine, but I've used Lua and other 1-based languages like ScriptX, and you totally get used to it, and finally realize that 0-based languages have their own confusing quirks and inconveniences that you got used to when you learned them, and you just don't think about them any more once you've internalized them, just like 1-based languages. It's just a matter of moving the confusing quirks and complexity around, not that 0-based languages are less confusing, complex, or quirky than 1-based languages, or the other way around. But that said, I'd prefer that Lua had 0-based indexes, simply because that's what most other languages have, not because it's superior.
      - chii 5y ago
        > It's just a matter of moving the confusing quirks and complexity around unless you can exclusively program in 1 language only, these confusions would be the cause of various bugs, or at least, increase the cognitive load. Programming is already hard enough, without artificially increasing the cognitive load!
    - CollinEMac 5y ago
      Same here. It's not a big deal once you get used to it but after years of always having indexes start at 0 it just seems... off.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        If you learned arrays in C where indexing is the same as pointer arithemetic then zero-based arrays seem natural. If you are coming from the real-world concept of "a list of things" then the "zero-th item" in the list seems odd; one-based indexing feels natural.
    - _huayra_ 5y ago
      iirc, one other confusing element is that tables (hash tables? I don't remember what they're called) return null when a lookup is done for a nonexistent key. This is not necessarily a bad choice. Exceptions and such can be a real pain. However, accidentally getting a null value because you didn't check and then have it propagate much further in your program is extremely difficult to debug. Instead of blowing up at the site of the bad lookup, you only see the distant effects of it (e.g. put the null value into another table, which gets put in another table, and then is attempted to be called as a function, etc).
      - boardwaalk 5y ago
        It even does this for globals (which are just another table), so there’s never an “undefined variable” error (even though there really is). It’s pretty unfortunate. You can mitigate it using meta tables though.
      - naasking 5y ago
        Storing a null value is a legitimate operation. How do you distinguish "never stored a value under key K", and "stored null under key K"?
        scgtrp 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure you're agreeing with them. Current Lua does this, which is wonky: > t = {} > t['a'] = nil > t['a'] nil > t['b'] nil
      - otikik 5y ago
        Give Teal [1] a look. It’s basically typescript for Lua https://github.com/teal-language/tl https://github.com/teal-language/tl
    - otikik 5y ago
      If you work with pure Lua that’s a non issue. The ipairs function abstracts that away, and for numerical loops are written different than in C, with a start value (included), an end value (included) and a step (optional), and no exit condition. You can’t put i<len there as a result like you would do in C. Agreed that interaction with C or other 0-based languages or systems (eg screen coords) makes things more difficult.
  - fouc 5y ago
    Why would Lua be significantly faster than Python? Isn't it an interpreted language too?
    - leephillips 5y ago
      The JIT version of LUA, according to some benchmarks I just saw, is similar to C in performance.
    - harpiaharpyja 5y ago
      The Lua interpreter is really lightweight, and for decades has been the go to choice for when you need dynamic code and speed (for example, it's been popular in the games industry for this reason). Probably someone else can shed light on exact numbers, but Lua is faster than Python.
      - scruple 5y ago
        It's also very small. We used it extensively on embedded Linux devices in the 2000s for these reasons as well as easy interop with C/C++.
        aa-jv 5y ago
        I'm still using Lua on embedded Linux devices, and in fact completed a project last year that was deemed impossible by the Java devs, but easily within our memory/time budget as a Lua group. The success of that embedded Lua project converted a large number of Java diehards into Lua accolytes... Folks who sniff at putting a scripted/interpreted language into an embedded environment really need to think twice with Lua. It is fast, tight and highly performant - and if you bundle it along with LuaJIT and Turbo.lua, it'll give you the best of all worlds - aynsc i/o, coroutines, very, very fast performance and a great execution environment upon which to build truly useful apps.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    Isn't it LuaJIT that's really fast? Last I remember reading about it, there was some version fragmentation going on with Lua advancing and LuaJIT stuck on an older version? (That was a long time ago, and I don't know what been happening since.)
    - pansa2 5y ago
      Yes, Lua’s now on version 5.4 and LuaJIT is stuck half-way between 5.1 and 5.2.
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      And LuaJIT has historically been extremely fast (initially much faster than JavaScript's early JITs) because it didn't have nearly as many optimizer-busting design flaws to work around as JavaScript JITs did, because Lua's language design is so much simpler and cleaner than JavaScript's, which wasn't originally designed to be compiled (cough cough "with" cough "this"). But because JavaScript was the "Chosen Language", a whole lot of effort has been put into developing JITs that worked around JavaScript's flaws over the decades since. But all that effort could have been put to much better uses if it didn't have all those flaws in the first place.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    Lua definitely does not have the power of something like Python. That's usually what people like about Lua: it's barebone, yet high level and clean. If one likes Python, then the chance of liking Lua are low. E.G: Both python and lua can open something (a file, a socket, a transaction...) in one line. But only Python has the `with` construct that means it's easy to guaranty you close it in case of an error. Lua is then easier to learn: one less concept to master. But the high level tool of Python, that you had to learn, make your life easier. They have very different trade off.
    - radlad 5y ago
      > If one likes Python, then the chance of liking Lua are low. I don't know. I quite like both as well. The design ethos feels similar although Python has certainly added more features over the years.
      - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
        "with" existed in python 2. In python 2.6 in fact, like comprehension lists, decorators, generators, descriptor protocol, exotic slicing assignation, advanced nested unpacking, infinite parameters... Python was always chock-full of advanced features, people just usually don't notice because they get productive in 3 days with the basic features and don't need to go further. It's has the quality of a very smooth learning curve, but a very long one if you care.
        radlad 5y ago
        "with" and "defer" (Go) are nice but not crucial to me.
        BiteCode_dev 5y ago
        My point exactly.
    - pygy_ 5y ago
      Lua 5.4 has to-be-closed variables that are similar in functions to with blocks in python. Unkike the __gc hook which provides no guarantee as to when it will be called, if ever, the __close hook is called when a value goes out of scope. http://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#3.3.8 http://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#3.3.8
- gilgad13 5y ago
  One aspect of Lua that stands out to me is how every feature is carefully designed both in isolation and in composition with the others. The language has relatively few features, but none of them are hanging off the side, the all lean on each other to make a cohesive whole. I think Lua is a bit unique in this for two reasons. First, they have in intentional open-source but not open development model. Second, because of the way that Lua is embedded inside other projects, there is more willingness to implement backwards-incompatable changes. I'm sure this is a negative for some who want to build a larger, less fractured community, but it has advantages for language cohesiveness.
DonHopkins 5y ago
I wish Netscape had chosen Lua instead of bothering to invent JavaScript. Python would have also been much better than JavaScript, but Lua would have been perfect. But at least they didn't choose TCL, as Sun was pushing before they switched gears to Java after the Great TCL War. And personally, I would have preferred PostScript (which was the basis of NeWS, with a Smalltalk-like OOP system) or ScriptX (which was like Scheme or Dylan with "normal" infix syntax and a CLOS-like OOP system) to JavaScript. If all the time and effort and treasure that was wasted cobbling together JavaScript from scratch with all its naive unforced design flaws and security holes and interoperability issues -- and then everyone else pissing away so much effort working around and fixing subtle bugs in JavaScript code due to those terrible design flaws (cough cough "this" cough cough "equality") -- had been put into Lua instead, which was cleanly designed from the start by incredibly smart people who actually had a clue about what they were doing, the world would be a much better place. People who are that confused about equality shouldn't design programming languages: https://dorey.github.io/JavaScript-Equality-Table/ https://dorey.github.io/JavaScript-Equality-Table/ "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." -George Orwell, Animal Farm https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379272 >For Netscape in 1995, I believe Python would have been a better choice than JavaScript, but Lua would have been an even better choice, given how much smaller, simpler, and more efficient Lua is, and the eventual excellence of LuaJIT. (If only Lua indexed its array from 0 instead of 1...) But Python and Lua didn't "look like Java" enough for Netscape. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061967 [...] >But if not PostScript, Python, or Lua, then at least Netscape didn't use TCL in the browser. Around 1994, long after NeWS and right before Java, Sun announced they were going to make TCL the official scripting language of the world wide web, which triggered RMS into kicking off the Great TCL War: >RMS's "Why you should not use Tcl" flame: https://wiki.tcl.tk/16730 https://wiki.tcl.tk/16730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061858 >And with that diplomatically worded message, RMS kicked of The Infamous TCL War. That was Stallman's response to Sun bombastically pushing TCL as the official scripting language of the web, BEFORE Live Oak / Java was a widely known (or evangelized) thing. >At the point anybody started talking about a Java/TCL bridge, it was already all over for TCL becoming the "ubiquitous scripting language of the Internet". >Sun's unilateral anointment of TCL as the official Internet scripting language trigged RMS's "Why you should not use Tcl" message, which triggered the TCL War, which triggered Sun to switch to Java. >After the TCL war finally subsided, Sun quietly pushed TCL aside and loudly evangelize Java instead. The TCL community was quite flustered and disappointed after first winning the title "ubiquitous scripting language of the Internet" and then having the title yanked away and given to Java. >Any talk of bridges were just table scraps for TCL, the redheaded bastard stepchild sitting outside on the back porch in the rain, smoking a cigarette and commiserating with NeWS and Self. >Tom Lord's description of what happened is insightful and accurate: https://web.archive.org/web/20110102015130/http://basiscraft.com/0800-0100-the-tcl-war.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110102015130/http://basiscraft...
aa-jv 5y ago
Cannot agree with you more. It is just so elegant and powerful, and yet simple. Easily one of the most productive tools in my suite, and I made a lot of money as a Lua developer last year, using Lua in a realtime analysis application. Would love to see a Lua-only browser arise from these efforts. Its just such a delightful language to code in ..

Lua is the only language I can truly say I love. If more people used it (and used it responsibly, not letting it become a mess of odd libraries), the world would be a better place.

Sebb767 5y ago

> Lua is the only language I can truly say I love Why? I've worked with Lua before and to me it's not a bad language, but nothing special either. I'm honestly wondering.

pansa2 5y ago
Not OP, but for me, I love Lua because it’s both easy-to-use and simple. Python is the former and Go is the latter, but I don’t know any other mainstream language that’s both.
friedturkey 5y ago
It has all the power of something like Python, but is much faster and with far less cruft and basically no confusing elements. You’re given a small set of tools and it’s incredibly easy to build off them.
- chii 5y ago
  > basically no confusing elements. the one confusing element - one-based indexing of arrays! that is something i found hard to adjust, as it makes off-by-one errors more prominent... but otherwise it's a nice language.
  - toastercat 5y ago
    That's not really confusing though, just takes a bit of unlearning the muscle memory of 0-based indexing.
  - donatj 5y ago
    I certainly prefer 0-indexed these days, but starting on 1-indexed languages (A variety of BASIC’s) I found 0-indexing just as weird.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    I agree, that's the one unfortunate flaw of Lua I'd go back in time and change if I were Hitler With a Time Machine, but I've used Lua and other 1-based languages like ScriptX, and you totally get used to it, and finally realize that 0-based languages have their own confusing quirks and inconveniences that you got used to when you learned them, and you just don't think about them any more once you've internalized them, just like 1-based languages. It's just a matter of moving the confusing quirks and complexity around, not that 0-based languages are less confusing, complex, or quirky than 1-based languages, or the other way around. But that said, I'd prefer that Lua had 0-based indexes, simply because that's what most other languages have, not because it's superior.
    - chii 5y ago
      > It's just a matter of moving the confusing quirks and complexity around unless you can exclusively program in 1 language only, these confusions would be the cause of various bugs, or at least, increase the cognitive load. Programming is already hard enough, without artificially increasing the cognitive load!
  - CollinEMac 5y ago
    Same here. It's not a big deal once you get used to it but after years of always having indexes start at 0 it just seems... off.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      If you learned arrays in C where indexing is the same as pointer arithemetic then zero-based arrays seem natural. If you are coming from the real-world concept of "a list of things" then the "zero-th item" in the list seems odd; one-based indexing feels natural.
  - _huayra_ 5y ago
    iirc, one other confusing element is that tables (hash tables? I don't remember what they're called) return null when a lookup is done for a nonexistent key. This is not necessarily a bad choice. Exceptions and such can be a real pain. However, accidentally getting a null value because you didn't check and then have it propagate much further in your program is extremely difficult to debug. Instead of blowing up at the site of the bad lookup, you only see the distant effects of it (e.g. put the null value into another table, which gets put in another table, and then is attempted to be called as a function, etc).
    - boardwaalk 5y ago
      It even does this for globals (which are just another table), so there’s never an “undefined variable” error (even though there really is). It’s pretty unfortunate. You can mitigate it using meta tables though.
    - naasking 5y ago
      Storing a null value is a legitimate operation. How do you distinguish "never stored a value under key K", and "stored null under key K"?
      - scgtrp 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure you're agreeing with them. Current Lua does this, which is wonky: > t = {} > t['a'] = nil > t['a'] nil > t['b'] nil
    - otikik 5y ago
      Give Teal [1] a look. It’s basically typescript for Lua https://github.com/teal-language/tl https://github.com/teal-language/tl
  - otikik 5y ago
    If you work with pure Lua that’s a non issue. The ipairs function abstracts that away, and for numerical loops are written different than in C, with a start value (included), an end value (included) and a step (optional), and no exit condition. You can’t put i<len there as a result like you would do in C. Agreed that interaction with C or other 0-based languages or systems (eg screen coords) makes things more difficult.
- fouc 5y ago
  Why would Lua be significantly faster than Python? Isn't it an interpreted language too?
  - leephillips 5y ago
    The JIT version of LUA, according to some benchmarks I just saw, is similar to C in performance.
  - harpiaharpyja 5y ago
    The Lua interpreter is really lightweight, and for decades has been the go to choice for when you need dynamic code and speed (for example, it's been popular in the games industry for this reason). Probably someone else can shed light on exact numbers, but Lua is faster than Python.
    - scruple 5y ago
      It's also very small. We used it extensively on embedded Linux devices in the 2000s for these reasons as well as easy interop with C/C++.
      - aa-jv 5y ago
        I'm still using Lua on embedded Linux devices, and in fact completed a project last year that was deemed impossible by the Java devs, but easily within our memory/time budget as a Lua group. The success of that embedded Lua project converted a large number of Java diehards into Lua accolytes... Folks who sniff at putting a scripted/interpreted language into an embedded environment really need to think twice with Lua. It is fast, tight and highly performant - and if you bundle it along with LuaJIT and Turbo.lua, it'll give you the best of all worlds - aynsc i/o, coroutines, very, very fast performance and a great execution environment upon which to build truly useful apps.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Isn't it LuaJIT that's really fast? Last I remember reading about it, there was some version fragmentation going on with Lua advancing and LuaJIT stuck on an older version? (That was a long time ago, and I don't know what been happening since.)
  - pansa2 5y ago
    Yes, Lua’s now on version 5.4 and LuaJIT is stuck half-way between 5.1 and 5.2.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    And LuaJIT has historically been extremely fast (initially much faster than JavaScript's early JITs) because it didn't have nearly as many optimizer-busting design flaws to work around as JavaScript JITs did, because Lua's language design is so much simpler and cleaner than JavaScript's, which wasn't originally designed to be compiled (cough cough "with" cough "this"). But because JavaScript was the "Chosen Language", a whole lot of effort has been put into developing JITs that worked around JavaScript's flaws over the decades since. But all that effort could have been put to much better uses if it didn't have all those flaws in the first place.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Lua definitely does not have the power of something like Python. That's usually what people like about Lua: it's barebone, yet high level and clean. If one likes Python, then the chance of liking Lua are low. E.G: Both python and lua can open something (a file, a socket, a transaction...) in one line. But only Python has the `with` construct that means it's easy to guaranty you close it in case of an error. Lua is then easier to learn: one less concept to master. But the high level tool of Python, that you had to learn, make your life easier. They have very different trade off.
  - radlad 5y ago
    > If one likes Python, then the chance of liking Lua are low. I don't know. I quite like both as well. The design ethos feels similar although Python has certainly added more features over the years.
    - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
      "with" existed in python 2. In python 2.6 in fact, like comprehension lists, decorators, generators, descriptor protocol, exotic slicing assignation, advanced nested unpacking, infinite parameters... Python was always chock-full of advanced features, people just usually don't notice because they get productive in 3 days with the basic features and don't need to go further. It's has the quality of a very smooth learning curve, but a very long one if you care.
      - radlad 5y ago
        "with" and "defer" (Go) are nice but not crucial to me.
        BiteCode_dev 5y ago
        My point exactly.
  - pygy_ 5y ago
    Lua 5.4 has to-be-closed variables that are similar in functions to with blocks in python. Unkike the __gc hook which provides no guarantee as to when it will be called, if ever, the __close hook is called when a value goes out of scope. http://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#3.3.8 http://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#3.3.8
gilgad13 5y ago
One aspect of Lua that stands out to me is how every feature is carefully designed both in isolation and in composition with the others. The language has relatively few features, but none of them are hanging off the side, the all lean on each other to make a cohesive whole. I think Lua is a bit unique in this for two reasons. First, they have in intentional open-source but not open development model. Second, because of the way that Lua is embedded inside other projects, there is more willingness to implement backwards-incompatable changes. I'm sure this is a negative for some who want to build a larger, less fractured community, but it has advantages for language cohesiveness.

DonHopkins 5y ago

I wish Netscape had chosen Lua instead of bothering to invent JavaScript. Python would have also been much better than JavaScript, but Lua would have been perfect. But at least they didn't choose TCL, as Sun was pushing before they switched gears to Java after the Great TCL War. And personally, I would have preferred PostScript (which was the basis of NeWS, with a Smalltalk-like OOP system) or ScriptX (which was like Scheme or Dylan with "normal" infix syntax and a CLOS-like OOP system) to JavaScript. If all the time and effort and treasure that was wasted cobbling together JavaScript from scratch with all its naive unforced design flaws and security holes and interoperability issues -- and then everyone else pissing away so much effort working around and fixing subtle bugs in JavaScript code due to those terrible design flaws (cough cough "this" cough cough "equality") -- had been put into Lua instead, which was cleanly designed from the start by incredibly smart people who actually had a clue about what they were doing, the world would be a much better place. People who are that confused about equality shouldn't design programming languages: https://dorey.github.io/JavaScript-Equality-Table/ https://dorey.github.io/JavaScript-Equality-Table/ "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." -George Orwell, Animal Farm https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379272 >For Netscape in 1995, I believe Python would have been a better choice than JavaScript, but Lua would have been an even better choice, given how much smaller, simpler, and more efficient Lua is, and the eventual excellence of LuaJIT. (If only Lua indexed its array from 0 instead of 1...) But Python and Lua didn't "look like Java" enough for Netscape. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061967 [...] >But if not PostScript, Python, or Lua, then at least Netscape didn't use TCL in the browser. Around 1994, long after NeWS and right before Java, Sun announced they were going to make TCL the official scripting language of the world wide web, which triggered RMS into kicking off the Great TCL War: >RMS's "Why you should not use Tcl" flame: https://wiki.tcl.tk/16730 https://wiki.tcl.tk/16730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061858 >And with that diplomatically worded message, RMS kicked of The Infamous TCL War. That was Stallman's response to Sun bombastically pushing TCL as the official scripting language of the web, BEFORE Live Oak / Java was a widely known (or evangelized) thing. >At the point anybody started talking about a Java/TCL bridge, it was already all over for TCL becoming the "ubiquitous scripting language of the Internet". >Sun's unilateral anointment of TCL as the official Internet scripting language trigged RMS's "Why you should not use Tcl" message, which triggered the TCL War, which triggered Sun to switch to Java. >After the TCL war finally subsided, Sun quietly pushed TCL aside and loudly evangelize Java instead. The TCL community was quite flustered and disappointed after first winning the title "ubiquitous scripting language of the Internet" and then having the title yanked away and given to Java. >Any talk of bridges were just table scraps for TCL, the redheaded bastard stepchild sitting outside on the back porch in the rain, smoking a cigarette and commiserating with NeWS and Self. >Tom Lord's description of what happened is insightful and accurate: https://web.archive.org/web/20110102015130/http://basiscraft.com/0800-0100-the-tcl-war.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110102015130/http://basiscraft...

aa-jv 5y ago

Cannot agree with you more. It is just so elegant and powerful, and yet simple. Easily one of the most productive tools in my suite, and I made a lot of money as a Lua developer last year, using Lua in a realtime analysis application. Would love to see a Lua-only browser arise from these efforts. Its just such a delightful language to code in ..