Re: Grokking the Virtual Machine

[David Burgess <dburgess@...>]

> popular both in Brazil where it originated
And popular in UK, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, Australia, USA,
Holland (forgive me if I missed 30-40 other countries)

DB

On 5/15/05, Hypertext Matters <htmatters@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I am the new Javascript columnist for hotscripts.com's email newsletter,
> with a monthly circulation of 2/3 million. I am using my second month's
> article for a little Lua evangelism. The following is my proposed article
> which I have to submit in the next couple of days; it must be 100-150 words
> and I'm near the very top already, so there won't be much I can add, though
> I could change things depending on feedback.
> 
> Thanks in advance, article follows:
> *******************************************************************************
> 
> GROKKING THE VIRTUAL MACHINE: This month we consider not Javascript, but
> it's syntactic cousin, Lua:
> 
> a = {}
> a["b"] = "c"
> 
> This code is valid in both Lua and Javascript; the first line creates a
> Javascript "associative array", or in Lua, a "table". In both languages
> these constructs serve as "objects", so both of the following are valid
> statements for retrieving the "b" property of "a":
> 
> a["b"]
> a.b
> 
> Other similarities include that functions are first-class values in both
> languages: they can be stored in variables, passed as arguments, and
> returned as results. Furthermore, both languages support "lexical closures",
> which allow "data hiding" (see last month's column).
> 
> Lua may well be the lowest-level of the C-based scripting languages: it is a
> "register-based" virtual machine, and has some hooks directly into C. It is
> popular both in Brazil where it originated, and with game programmers. Look
> into Lua, and become a better Javascript programmer!
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> 
>