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I love this - if every language could have something like this written up it would be amazing. It just about fits into my attention span!

• chubot 13y ago
  Well, it helps a lot that Lua is by design a very small language :) Python is actually much bigger nowadays -- I would challenge someone to come up with something this simple that doesn't leave out a lot of stuff you will encounter in real code. The extra features ("bloat") do matter. I like the idea of Lua a lot, but when I started programming in it, it unfortunately felt like a less capable Python to me.
  • TillE 13y ago
    Lua and Javascript are quite similar in that way: nice little languages that fall apart really quickly when you try building anything reasonably large or complex. I don't really understand the attraction, except in certain niches like Lua as an embedded scripting engine, when you really need something that can be trivially sandboxed.
    • landhar 13y ago
      > [...] except in certain niches like Lua as an embedded scripting engine, when you really need something that can be trivially sandboxed. Isn't that exactly the reason JavaScript exists in the first place (i.e.: an embedded scripting engine for browsers) ?
  • jnbiche 13y ago
    I'm sure you're aware of Penlight, which does a very nice job of providing a "batteries included" library similar to Python's for Lua.
    • untothebreach 13y ago
      I definitely wasn't, thanks for the tip!