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C/C++/C# are indeed often used for game programming but when it comes to gameplay logic scripting there's a lot more options. Lua, blueprint, lisp, angelscript,

C/C++/C# are indeed often used for game programming but when it comes to gameplay logic scripting there's a lot more options. Lua, blueprint, lisp, angelscript, unity's graph language etc..

paulddraper 4y ago
Yeah, Lua is super common. Not exactly sure why, but it really is.
- codebje 4y ago
  Lua is super common because it's super easy to embed into a C(++) project.
- Yoric 4y ago
  If I remember correctly, one of the main original reasons was that it was super easy to embed.
  - paulddraper 4y ago
    Isn't that true of Python as well?
    - camgunz 4y ago
      Long ago I evaluated a few scripting languages to add to a Doom engine, I think I considered Ruby, Lua, Python, JavaScript, and Squirrel. I ended up choosing Lua because: - easy to embed - good ecosystem (in particular needed Lua GObject Introspection for pangocairo) - usable from C (not just C++) - not white space sensitive - skills translate to programming in the large - it's fast A lot of games let you write little snippets of code or what have you in a console or text box. Python is really bad at handling that because of its whitespace sensitivity. It's also the slowest popular language by far.
      - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
        As a non-programmer: when you say slowest, do you mean most verbose? Or, most runtime overhead? Or, something else?
        camgunz 4y ago
        Runtime; there are things you can do, but generally Python takes more time and memory to do things than other languages/platforms. It got better in 3.11 but AFAIK it's still the slowest.
        pbhjpbhj 4y ago
        Thanks.
        camgunz 4y ago
        No prob! :)
        piva00 4y ago
        Slowest in runtime performance I'd guess as the CPython runtime isn't really known for its performance. Other projects such as PyPy implement a much faster interpreter/JIT compiler but there are some compatibility quirks to use them.
    - david2ndaccount 4y ago
      It’s not super difficult to embed python, but it ain’t easy. It is also very slow and insists on stat’ing a million files all over the disk when starting up. It’s also hard to stop python code from doing things it really shouldn’t, like calling os._exit. Oh, you also have to deal with linking against the right crt on windows.
  - ClimaxGravely 4y ago
    I think that's definitely the reason from my talks with the engine programmers who added lua support to our bespoke engines. Lua binding is quite easy.
- JonChesterfield 4y ago
  It's ridiculously easy to code in. Lua started out life as a simple language for extending larger projects and then repeatedly broke backwards compatibility to make the language simpler. For example it's lexically scoped now but it wasn't to begin with. Contrast with python, which started out life as a simple beginner friendly language, then added lots of complexity, then had the totally botched transition from 2.7 to 3 and is now growing a static type system. Lua is also very easy to embed in other systems. Like sqlite.c levels of easy to embed.
- munificent 4y ago
  A few reasons: 1. Extremely permissive license. 2. Very simple embedding API. 3. Fairly efficient for a scripting language. 4. Simple and relatively easy to learn.

C/C++/C# are indeed often used for game programming but when it comes to gameplay logic scripting there's a lot more options. Lua, blueprint, lisp, angelscript, unity's graph language etc..

paulddraper 4y ago

Yeah, Lua is super common. Not exactly sure why, but it really is.

codebje 4y ago
Lua is super common because it's super easy to embed into a C(++) project.
Yoric 4y ago
If I remember correctly, one of the main original reasons was that it was super easy to embed.
- paulddraper 4y ago
  Isn't that true of Python as well?
  - camgunz 4y ago
    Long ago I evaluated a few scripting languages to add to a Doom engine, I think I considered Ruby, Lua, Python, JavaScript, and Squirrel. I ended up choosing Lua because: - easy to embed - good ecosystem (in particular needed Lua GObject Introspection for pangocairo) - usable from C (not just C++) - not white space sensitive - skills translate to programming in the large - it's fast A lot of games let you write little snippets of code or what have you in a console or text box. Python is really bad at handling that because of its whitespace sensitivity. It's also the slowest popular language by far.
    - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
      As a non-programmer: when you say slowest, do you mean most verbose? Or, most runtime overhead? Or, something else?
      - camgunz 4y ago
        Runtime; there are things you can do, but generally Python takes more time and memory to do things than other languages/platforms. It got better in 3.11 but AFAIK it's still the slowest.
        pbhjpbhj 4y ago
        Thanks.
        camgunz 4y ago
        No prob! :)
      - piva00 4y ago
        Slowest in runtime performance I'd guess as the CPython runtime isn't really known for its performance. Other projects such as PyPy implement a much faster interpreter/JIT compiler but there are some compatibility quirks to use them.
  - david2ndaccount 4y ago
    It’s not super difficult to embed python, but it ain’t easy. It is also very slow and insists on stat’ing a million files all over the disk when starting up. It’s also hard to stop python code from doing things it really shouldn’t, like calling os._exit. Oh, you also have to deal with linking against the right crt on windows.
- ClimaxGravely 4y ago
  I think that's definitely the reason from my talks with the engine programmers who added lua support to our bespoke engines. Lua binding is quite easy.
JonChesterfield 4y ago
It's ridiculously easy to code in. Lua started out life as a simple language for extending larger projects and then repeatedly broke backwards compatibility to make the language simpler. For example it's lexically scoped now but it wasn't to begin with. Contrast with python, which started out life as a simple beginner friendly language, then added lots of complexity, then had the totally botched transition from 2.7 to 3 and is now growing a static type system. Lua is also very easy to embed in other systems. Like sqlite.c levels of easy to embed.
munificent 4y ago
A few reasons: 1. Extremely permissive license. 2. Very simple embedding API. 3. Fairly efficient for a scripting language. 4. Simple and relatively easy to learn.