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Would Lua have worked there? It's a ~200k library designed to provide an embedded scripting language to C projects. (It's very similar to Python, but a tenth th

Would Lua have worked there? It's a ~200k library designed to provide an embedded scripting language to C projects. (It's very similar to Python, but a tenth the size, and with a bit more Scheme influence.) While it may be too big for some especially tight embedded platforms, if you could fit it in, it would have likely been substantially less painful. It's also a pretty good scripting language on its own merits, and has replaced Python as my default language. (Unlike Python, its design expects you to know at least a little C, but in exchange, it avoids cluttering the language with things that C already does well.)

gamache 17y ago
Lua is meant for embedding in C programs; that is different from running on embdedded systems. The latter typically features drastically less RAM and CPU cycles, so most interpreted languages (which are not shy about trading away some performance) don't cut it. There are some exceptions; FORTH, for instance, can fit in about a kilobyte and its performance isn't miserable. But putting e.g. Lua in a confined space would not work out well.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  To my understanding "embedded systems" spans from something with 1k of memory to something like a cell phone or a router. Working with Lua is quite comfortable on the latter, hence my qualification. It's been ported to Lego Mindstorms (http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pbLua/index.html http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pbLua/index.html), for example, which is "a 32 bit ARM7 microcontroller with 256K of FLASH and 64K of RAM." It's not clear from the post which end of the spectrum he or she works with. (I don't work with embedded systems professionally, I've just tinkered with OpenWRT, cell phones, etc. as an enthusiastic amateur.) It would be usable in the same niches that SQLite is, for example.

gamache 17y ago

Lua is meant for embedding in C programs; that is different from running on embdedded systems. The latter typically features drastically less RAM and CPU cycles, so most interpreted languages (which are not shy about trading away some performance) don't cut it. There are some exceptions; FORTH, for instance, can fit in about a kilobyte and its performance isn't miserable. But putting e.g. Lua in a confined space would not work out well.

silentbicycle 17y ago
To my understanding "embedded systems" spans from something with 1k of memory to something like a cell phone or a router. Working with Lua is quite comfortable on the latter, hence my qualification. It's been ported to Lego Mindstorms (http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pbLua/index.html http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pbLua/index.html), for example, which is "a 32 bit ARM7 microcontroller with 256K of FLASH and 64K of RAM." It's not clear from the post which end of the spectrum he or she works with. (I don't work with embedded systems professionally, I've just tinkered with OpenWRT, cell phones, etc. as an enthusiastic amateur.) It would be usable in the same niches that SQLite is, for example.