Re: Positioning a new lua distribution

["SIMUDREAM" <mail@...>]

"Assembly language is confined to a few specific domains now. C and C++ are
about to meet the same fate as being too time consuming to work with for the
vast majority of application domains already."

Where do you come off saying something like that.  Asm, C and C++ are all
tools to get the job done.  Why do you say such irrelevant things about
important tools that are there for your choosing.  You must take into
consideration what you are trying to accomplish with the computer and then
look at all the tools available and choose the best.  However some tools may
get used more than others, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist anymore
or won't.

Try not to say such absurd things next time to prove a completely different
point about scripting languages.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bilyk, Alex" <ABilyk@maxis.com>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <lua-l@tecgraf.puc-rio.br>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 12:29 PM
Subject: RE: Positioning a new lua distribution


>
> LuaCheia strikes me too as something that has been done over and over to
the degree of being overdone... over and over. "Let's redo X in language Y"
activities, referred to by one of previous posts, are simply a form of
entertainment, IMHO. The only value I see in this effort is that new
LuaCheia modules will carry same license as Lua, making them available for
commercial software. Ah, sounded pretty selfish actually. Otherwise Perl and
Python are on the shelf and already have 1000 times more of working
off-the-shelf stuff (sql, sdl, xml, sockets, you-name-it) then LuaCheia has
on its blueprints. I don't buy for a micro-second into an argument about
fitting it on a 1.4M floppy. Floppies are obsolete, for one, and even less
useful in the embedding world than say RS-232. Secondly, while 10 years ago
just about any piece of software could fit on a floppy, today, a lot of
things have trouble fitting on a CD. So, why look 10 years back? How about
looking 10 years into the future wh!
> en most people will unlikely know about C/C++. Assembly language is
confined to a few specific domains now. C and C++ are about to meet the same
fate as being too time consuming to work with for the vast majority of
application domains already. Even performance-oriented applications switch
to higher level programming languages more and more just like a while back
people had switched from Assembly to C, etc., loosing in application
performance but gaining in productivity in the process.
>
> Embedding Lua in Python? What for? Python is virtually unsuitable for
embedding in commercial applications AFAIK due to its scary license, as
lawyers make us believe. If one wanted to run Python scripts from Lua why
not to have something like os.exec("python", "my_test.py") returning a piece
of Lua code generated by "my_test.py" ready for evaluation by Lua. Why would
one want to run Lua from a Python script? Not that it would be hard to embed
Lua in Python. Syntax between the two is similar. Semantics is similar.
Clarity of sources produced is usually very comparable. Lua has no libraries
to compete with Python/Perl. So why do we care about things like LuaCheia? I
can think of one important reason. May it be simply because "Let's redo X in
language Y" is fun and there are people who are entertained by doing it,
including me on occasion? From my experience, however, such people usually
have very hard time admitting that it's for entertainment value only, as if
there was somethi!
> ng wrong with having fun. Instead, they tend to say "Oh! But we would like
to satisfy conditions A, B, C with our new thing Y, that no other language X
can satisfy." And there you hear things like "fitting it all on 1.4M floppy"
as a major goal and on and on and on. One can carry a CD around just as
well. I think it is unfair to the entire entertainment industry to
undervalue and downplay the fun aspect of things so much:) There is nothing
wrong with writing software for entertainment! Certainly no more wrong than
with watching TV, which most people do and have no trouble saying so:)
>
> However, if the new LuaCheia modules have the same license as Lua itself,
allowing them to be embedded into commercial applications as easily as Lua,
than it becomes a totally different ball game and even more fun. Otherwise,
I would have to say "Are you nuts? Spend a day, learning Python and forget
you ever puzzled over programming just about anything one might want to
program on a computer in a rather platform independent manner using very
human-friendly modern-day computer language. Unless, of course, you feel
like having some fun reinventing the wheel."
>
> Another .02.
>
> Alex
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo [mailto:lhf@tecgraf.puc-rio.br]
> > Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 4:48 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list
> > Subject: Re: Positioning a new lua distribution
> >
> >
> > >But could you maybe elaborate why you think one mght find it
> > usefull to
> > >embed one scripting language into another?
> > >Binding C-code can't be the real reason, Python bindings are
> > rather easy
> > >too.
> >
> > As someone already pointed out here, one reason might be to
> > use the huge
> > amount of libraries that already exist for these other
> > scripting languages,
> > Python being the prime example, I guess.
> >
> > >Or are you thinking more along the lines of: 'Use this
> > extension with Perl,
> > >or use it with Python, or even Ruby if you like, w/o
> > changing the code?'
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean here. Anyway, Lua is already
> > embedable in Ruby:
> > http://ruby-lua.unolotiene.com/ruby-lua.whtm
> > --lhf
> >