RE: game developers?

[Falko Poiker <fpoiker@...>]

We chose Lua (over Python mainly, but also others) because it's fast and
has a small footprint.  The other team in our company is using Python,
so we can easily compare the two languages.

Having gained some experience (about 2 months of implementation work so 
far) I'm glad we chose lua: it's still fast and small, and I really 
like how clean it is (especially when it comes to embedding it into
an existing application).  But there are a few downsides:  lack of 
text documentation (Python has a bunch of O'Reilly books), almost 
non-existant documentation within the code itself (again, compared 
to Python - which has at least 1 comment per function, plus a really 
long comment per file describing the purpose of the file) and lack of 
examples (especially examples of how to embed the code in an application).

Knowing all the above, I would still choose lua over Python for our
game.

Falko Poiker
Programmer/Designer
Homeworld Team
Relic Entertainment Inc.



-----Original Message-----
From: Brandon Van Every [mailto:vanevery@3dprogrammer.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 12:23 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: game developers?


I'm aware from the Lua projects pages that several game developers, both
hobbyist and professional, have used Lua as the game engine's embedded
scripting
language.  I am wondering what drove your decision to use Lua instead of
other
embeddable scripting languages?  Most notably Python, as in my brief survey
of
what's available that seems like a good candidate.  Anyways, tell me what
your
overriding concerns were, and also what they are now, having gained
experience
with Lua.


Cheers,                              3d graphics optimization jock
Brandon Van Every                    Seattle, WA

Experts eliminate the simpler mistakes in favor of the more
complex ones, thereby achieving a higher degree of stupidity.  :-)