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The comparison with Lua is the most interesting to me. Most companies I worked for used Python as a shitty proxy or CLI tool, but I never could recommend Lua du

The comparison with Lua is the most interesting to me. Most companies I worked for used Python as a shitty proxy or CLI tool, but I never could recommend Lua due to its confusing OO system (meta tables??) If this language is a valid alternative with a simple struct and a basic constructor, I may recommend it to remove all the Python scripts and their dependencies.

zdragnar 3y ago
Having a lot of experience wrangling prototypes in JS was a nice benefit to my first forays into lua, though I wrote more functional code than OO anyway. Honestly, off by one errors due to indexing was a lot harder to shake than getting used to meta tables.
- runlaszlorun 3y ago
  I’m assuming that the indexing off by one errors were due to Lua 1-based indexing? If so, was it due to you being used to 0-based indexing or something else? Just curious. I’ve been kicking around some attempts to make programming simpler (though hopefully no less powerful) for casual programmers. Lua’s 1-based indexing gets a lot of critiques and, while I haven’t written a ton of Lua, can’t help but think that the critiques are due to us all being used to 0-based indexing. Which is a valid critique, especially for a scripting language, but one that applies less to novices.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - norir 3y ago
    This is somewhat inefficient but zero indexed strings can easily be simulated in lua: local array = function(backing) local res = { len = function() return #backing end } setmetatable(res, { __index = function(_, k) return backing[k + 1] end, __newindex = function(_, k, v) backing[k + 1] = v end }) return res end local x = array { 1, 2, 3 } print(x[0]) -- 1 x[1] = 5 x[x.len()] = 6 for i = 0, x.len() - 1 do print(x[i]) end -- 1\n5\n3\n6
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    Bingo. All of the languages I have used prior to (and since) use 0-indexed arrays. There's times where doing math with array indexes is simpler with 0 and with 1-indexed arrays. I don't think I really found 0 to be difficult to learn; there are a great many more challenging things. I wouldn't say "don't use a 1 indexed language" but I've also never found the arguments in favor of it to be compelling when using lua.
vitiral 3y ago
Metatable types are indeed kind of awkward, but it's pretty easy to build a type system on them in a library. Check out metaty where I built a type system, formatter and deep equality checking in like 700 LoC. I'm adding the ability to document types/functions as well, after which it will be "done"
- chadcmulligan 3y ago
  Would you have a link? my googling skills have failed me
  - vitiral 3y ago
    https://github.com/civboot/civlua/tree/main/metaty https://github.com/civboot/civlua/tree/main/metaty

zdragnar 3y ago

Having a lot of experience wrangling prototypes in JS was a nice benefit to my first forays into lua, though I wrote more functional code than OO anyway. Honestly, off by one errors due to indexing was a lot harder to shake than getting used to meta tables.

runlaszlorun 3y ago
I’m assuming that the indexing off by one errors were due to Lua 1-based indexing? If so, was it due to you being used to 0-based indexing or something else? Just curious. I’ve been kicking around some attempts to make programming simpler (though hopefully no less powerful) for casual programmers. Lua’s 1-based indexing gets a lot of critiques and, while I haven’t written a ton of Lua, can’t help but think that the critiques are due to us all being used to 0-based indexing. Which is a valid critique, especially for a scripting language, but one that applies less to novices.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- norir 3y ago
  This is somewhat inefficient but zero indexed strings can easily be simulated in lua: local array = function(backing) local res = { len = function() return #backing end } setmetatable(res, { __index = function(_, k) return backing[k + 1] end, __newindex = function(_, k, v) backing[k + 1] = v end }) return res end local x = array { 1, 2, 3 } print(x[0]) -- 1 x[1] = 5 x[x.len()] = 6 for i = 0, x.len() - 1 do print(x[i]) end -- 1\n5\n3\n6
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Bingo. All of the languages I have used prior to (and since) use 0-indexed arrays. There's times where doing math with array indexes is simpler with 0 and with 1-indexed arrays. I don't think I really found 0 to be difficult to learn; there are a great many more challenging things. I wouldn't say "don't use a 1 indexed language" but I've also never found the arguments in favor of it to be compelling when using lua.

vitiral 3y ago

Metatable types are indeed kind of awkward, but it's pretty easy to build a type system on them in a library. Check out metaty where I built a type system, formatter and deep equality checking in like 700 LoC. I'm adding the ability to document types/functions as well, after which it will be "done"

chadcmulligan 3y ago
Would you have a link? my googling skills have failed me
- vitiral 3y ago
  https://github.com/civboot/civlua/tree/main/metaty https://github.com/civboot/civlua/tree/main/metaty