5 ms·

Ive always thought Lua would be a good vim scripting language. * It's designed to be embedded * It's easy to expose functionality and API's * It's fast * IM

Ive always thought Lua would be a good vim scripting language. * It's designed to be embedded * It's easy to expose functionality and API's * It's fast * IME if other languages are also embedded, and a thoughtful API/plugin arch is created, functionality from other language plugins can be easily accessed in lua. (I know, bunch of caveats there, but if I'm dreaming...)

Avshalom 14y ago
only thing about Lua is that strings are immutable so certain kinds of operations can be very slow.
- hetman 14y ago
  They are also immutable in Python.
  - ShawnBird 14y ago
    What are you talking about? http://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html http://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html
    - pyre 14y ago
      >>> a = "string" >>> a[1] = 'g' Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment >>> b = a.replace('t', 'g') >>> b 'sgring' >>> a 'string' >>> id(b) 3065252256L >>> id(a) 3075481632L Also from here[1]: Strings and tuples are immutable sequence types: such objects cannot be modified once created. [1] http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#mutable-sequence-types http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#mutable-seque...
      - ShawnBird 14y ago
        Oh. I guess I never thought of strings as immutable because there are so many ways to change them.
        noselasd 14y ago
        Given that they're immutable, you cannot change them. Instead all the operations returns a new, modified, string.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
hsitz 14y ago
Vim supports scripting with Lua similar to the support it already has for Python, Perl, Ruby, Racket. Your instance of Vim just has to be compiled with that option. See ':h lua'. One major problem with its support for scripting languages has been that you can't count on other users having a Vim compiled with proper support. This includes Python, although more recently some distributions (e.g., I think, Ubuntu) have had standard Vims where Python support was by default compiled in. Apparently improvements to Python interface in 7.4 will go beyond those currently offered for outside languages, which many find somewhat clunky.
- sophacles 14y ago
  Oh yeah, the Lua support is there, I was meaning a concentrated effort to have Lua replace VimScript completely.
- gnosis 14y ago
  99% of vim scripts still use VimScript. I think this happens for a few reasons: - First, as you pointed out, not every user is guaranteed to have your favorite language installed. But they will have VimScript whenever they use vim. - Second, even if a user has your favorite language installed, the version of vim they have might not be compiled with bindings for that language. Only VimScript is guarateed to be compiled in. - Third, VimScript is the only language in vim that's not crippled in some way in respect to functionality. All the other languages it supports have to rely on VimScript itself in order to perform some vim-related functions. In some languages, this makes it so that you might as well be using VimScript to begin with.
  - siddboots 14y ago
    #2 has been the biggest drawback in my experience. It often isn't realistic to compile your editor from scratch, particularly when you are working in a windows environment without administrator rights to your machine. This means that any extensions (e.g. dbext) dependent on those bindings are unavailable. Is there a reason why there is no portable binary compiled with bindings for perl, python, lua, et cetera?
- 14y ago

Avshalom 14y ago

only thing about Lua is that strings are immutable so certain kinds of operations can be very slow.

hetman 14y ago
They are also immutable in Python.
- ShawnBird 14y ago
  What are you talking about? http://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html http://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html
  - pyre 14y ago
    >>> a = "string" >>> a[1] = 'g' Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment >>> b = a.replace('t', 'g') >>> b 'sgring' >>> a 'string' >>> id(b) 3065252256L >>> id(a) 3075481632L Also from here[1]: Strings and tuples are immutable sequence types: such objects cannot be modified once created. [1] http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#mutable-sequence-types http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#mutable-seque...
    - ShawnBird 14y ago
      Oh. I guess I never thought of strings as immutable because there are so many ways to change them.
      - noselasd 14y ago
        Given that they're immutable, you cannot change them. Instead all the operations returns a new, modified, string.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

hsitz 14y ago

Vim supports scripting with Lua similar to the support it already has for Python, Perl, Ruby, Racket. Your instance of Vim just has to be compiled with that option. See ':h lua'. One major problem with its support for scripting languages has been that you can't count on other users having a Vim compiled with proper support. This includes Python, although more recently some distributions (e.g., I think, Ubuntu) have had standard Vims where Python support was by default compiled in. Apparently improvements to Python interface in 7.4 will go beyond those currently offered for outside languages, which many find somewhat clunky.

sophacles 14y ago
Oh yeah, the Lua support is there, I was meaning a concentrated effort to have Lua replace VimScript completely.
gnosis 14y ago
99% of vim scripts still use VimScript. I think this happens for a few reasons: - First, as you pointed out, not every user is guaranteed to have your favorite language installed. But they will have VimScript whenever they use vim. - Second, even if a user has your favorite language installed, the version of vim they have might not be compiled with bindings for that language. Only VimScript is guarateed to be compiled in. - Third, VimScript is the only language in vim that's not crippled in some way in respect to functionality. All the other languages it supports have to rely on VimScript itself in order to perform some vim-related functions. In some languages, this makes it so that you might as well be using VimScript to begin with.
- siddboots 14y ago
  #2 has been the biggest drawback in my experience. It often isn't realistic to compile your editor from scratch, particularly when you are working in a windows environment without administrator rights to your machine. This means that any extensions (e.g. dbext) dependent on those bindings are unavailable. Is there a reason why there is no portable binary compiled with bindings for perl, python, lua, et cetera?
14y ago