4 ms·

noob question from a hardware guy : what is a small embeddable dynamic language? What would be a user-case for example?

bbkane 3y ago
"small embeddable dynamic languages" are usually used to configure or program other larger compiled applications. This is bes understood by example: https://create.roblox.com/docs/tutorials/scripting/basic-scripting/intro-to-scripting https://create.roblox.com/docs/tutorials/scripting/basic-scr... - make a mini game in Roblox https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module?tab=readme-ov-file#typical-uses https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module?tab=readme-ov-... - configure and extend NGINX https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/lua/general.html https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/lua/general.html - make your terminal more useful (my personal config changes the tab color based on the process name - https://github.com/bbkane/dotfiles/blob/master/wezterm/dot-config/wezterm/format_tab_title.lua https://github.com/bbkane/dotfiles/blob/master/wezterm/dot-c... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQBr9hwf0BY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQBr9hwf0BY - configure your text editor
- logtempo 3y ago
  ho I see. It's kind of a programming interface, a "higher level" language, a plug-in. for exemple, GdScript in Godot game engine would fall into the "embedded dynamic language" ?
  - bbkane 3y ago
    Yes I think so- it manipulates and orchestrates the compiled C++ code underneath.
__s 3y ago
The C Lua interpreter takes ~150k. It's easy to extend with your own types/functions. So it makes it easy to use as a Turing complete configuration language redis exposes a Lua scripting interface if one wants to avoid latency of executing commands back & forth over network: https://redis.io/docs/interact/programmability/eval-intro https://redis.io/docs/interact/programmability/eval-intro Over the last couple weeks I've been integrating gopher-lua (a Lua implementation in Go, which then plays nice with Go types & its GC) into PeerDB for scripting data transformations. It's been easy expose stuff like decimal types to the script. It allows a program to make itself extensible
corysama 3y ago
A hardware guy might appreciate https://github.com/snabbco/snabb https://github.com/snabbco/snabb https://blogs.igalia.com/dpino/2017/11/13/snabb-network-toolkit/ https://blogs.igalia.com/dpino/2017/11/13/snabb-network-tool...
thisislife2 3y ago
Automation. It can be used to automate tasks in an app. For example, a common task in a Photo Editor app is to resize photos. But resizing 100's of photos manually can be a pain. If the app has scripting support, you can write a script to resize photos and just run it. It can also be used to add the feature of creating extensions / add-ons for an app. (See https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ ).
jcarrano 3y ago
Lua can certainly work, though it takes up a bit more ram than absolutely necessary due to it allocating language data structures (tables mainly) during startup. If you have enough ram it is fine. I ported Lua to the RIOT OS and it was not all that hard.

"small embeddable dynamic languages" are usually used to configure or program other larger compiled applications. This is bes understood by example: https://create.roblox.com/docs/tutorials/scripting/basic-scripting/intro-to-scripting https://create.roblox.com/docs/tutorials/scripting/basic-scr... - make a mini game in Roblox https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module?tab=readme-ov-file#typical-uses https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module?tab=readme-ov-... - configure and extend NGINX https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/lua/general.html https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/lua/general.html - make your terminal more useful (my personal config changes the tab color based on the process name - https://github.com/bbkane/dotfiles/blob/master/wezterm/dot-config/wezterm/format_tab_title.lua https://github.com/bbkane/dotfiles/blob/master/wezterm/dot-c... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQBr9hwf0BY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQBr9hwf0BY - configure your text editor

logtempo 3y ago
ho I see. It's kind of a programming interface, a "higher level" language, a plug-in. for exemple, GdScript in Godot game engine would fall into the "embedded dynamic language" ?
- bbkane 3y ago
  Yes I think so- it manipulates and orchestrates the compiled C++ code underneath.

__s 3y ago

The C Lua interpreter takes ~150k. It's easy to extend with your own types/functions. So it makes it easy to use as a Turing complete configuration language redis exposes a Lua scripting interface if one wants to avoid latency of executing commands back & forth over network: https://redis.io/docs/interact/programmability/eval-intro https://redis.io/docs/interact/programmability/eval-intro Over the last couple weeks I've been integrating gopher-lua (a Lua implementation in Go, which then plays nice with Go types & its GC) into PeerDB for scripting data transformations. It's been easy expose stuff like decimal types to the script. It allows a program to make itself extensible

corysama 3y ago

A hardware guy might appreciate https://github.com/snabbco/snabb https://github.com/snabbco/snabb https://blogs.igalia.com/dpino/2017/11/13/snabb-network-toolkit/ https://blogs.igalia.com/dpino/2017/11/13/snabb-network-tool...

thisislife2 3y ago

Automation. It can be used to automate tasks in an app. For example, a common task in a Photo Editor app is to resize photos. But resizing 100's of photos manually can be a pain. If the app has scripting support, you can write a script to resize photos and just run it. It can also be used to add the feature of creating extensions / add-ons for an app. (See https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ ).

jcarrano 3y ago

Lua can certainly work, though it takes up a bit more ram than absolutely necessary due to it allocating language data structures (tables mainly) during startup. If you have enough ram it is fine. I ported Lua to the RIOT OS and it was not all that hard.