Re: A "collaborative book" on Lua? (or: Bruce Eckel's take on Lua)

["Thatcher Ulrich" <tu@...>]

On Feb 05, 2003 at 08:59 -0200, Fabio Reis Cecin wrote:
> 
> On 5 Feb 2003, at 9:17, Bruce Eckel wrote:
> 
> > Although Lua looks interesting and I'm sure that I'm missing some
> > of its critical features, it's not clear to me that it has
> > advantages over Python that would give a Lua programmer a distinct
> > enough advantage over a Python programmer to justify changing to
> > the language. In addition, Python has an enormous advantage because
> > of the set of libraries developed over the years -- Ruby recently
> > "acknowledged" this by making that language able to directly call
> > the Python libraries. Without a library like Python's, it's pretty
> > hard to sell the productivity increase.
>
> I've never really used Python so I have a bit off-topic question: is
> Python a language designed for "programming-in-the-large"?
> Does it work for that? If yes, why Lua can't be or will never be
> -- what feature would make Python good for large programs?

[Disclaimer: this is all off-the-cuff opinion, and could be totally
"wrong", factually and otherwise :) ]

I have only a very limited knowledge of Python, but I believe it does
have a number of built in module-oriented features.  And, the huge
base of libraries that Bruce mentions.  Those are probably the two
most important programming-in-the-large features, IMO.  Perl had those
features earlier AFAIK, and is probably still much more widely used,
but Python is much easier than Perl for casual programmers (or
full-time programmers who usually use a different language), so it
seems to be gaining ground.

Lua's main benefits, IMO, relative to Python, are its small size and
relatively good performance.  Lua seems to have good acceptance in a
few particular areas: game programming, small and embedded
environments, and some language research projects.

On the other hand, Lua cannot compete with Python's libraries, tools,
and community.  [But if you want to do something about that,
contribute a module to the Lua Binary Modules collection at
http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaBinaryModules]

Otherwise, I think the two languages have a lot in common.

I don't know if Lua can catch up to Python in the areas that Python
excels at.  Also, honestly I don't know if it's worth the effort; if
the goal is popularity and longevity, Lua should probably continue to
focus mainly on the areas where it has good acceptance.  As far as
book sales go, I think a book like "Game Programming with Lua" might
do OK.

-- 
Thatcher Ulrich
http://tulrich.com