Re: Ironic comment RE: cooperative multitasking

[Bret Mogilefsky <mogul@...>]

On Sat, 2002-06-08 at 09:38, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> The fact that enough game companies don't find languages like Lua useful
> says that there is something Lua is missing that it shouldn't be.  All
> that I can really think of tho is a) *real* multi-tasking, and b) a more
> newbie-friendly syntax.

You're writing as if every game company out there with a scripting
language of their own has evaluated Lua and passed on it.  I honestly
don't think game developers are saying "Lua's got no *real*
multi-tasking?  Screw that, I'm going to go write my own language from
scratch!"  I'd say the number one thing missing from Lua is *exposure*.

There's a tendency among all programmers, and especially game
programmers, to rewrite what came before assuming they'll save time by
not trying to customize something written by people who didn't have your
needs in mind.  

I know I did that for my first game (previous technology was more
trouble to improve than to replace), but I was lucky enough to have
heard about Lua first, so I replaced what came before, all right... with
Lua.

(And by the way, Lua's syntax is incredibly forgiving... That was
actually the first reason I chose it, before knowing anything about all
of the other benefits of size, speed, flexibility, etc.)


Bret
-- 
Bret Mogilefsky * Mgr. SCEA Developer Support * mogul@gelatinous.com