Re: Lua and Neko comparison

[Sam Roberts <sroberts@...>]

On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 10:23:25AM -0700, Chris Marrin wrote:
> As it is, using 'and' rather than '&&', '~=' rather than '!=' and '--'
> rather than '//' are just showstoppers.

You could do a search and replace to convert those tokens between
javascript and lua, but the semantics are different.

And if syntax AND semantics are the same... then they are the same
language.

There may be people to whom using // is so important that a language
that uses -- is a show stopper, but not very smart people.

You really think Apple would take a language with the same syntax as js,
but with different semantics? Or are js and lua really so close in
semantics? If so, maybe js could be "compiled" into lua, like Markus
Fleck-Graffe seems to be doing with Smalltalk. Wish I could have seen
the talk.

What would you have tried to say that would convince a company that
wants less languages, not more, that a different language with more
js-like syntax should be used in some places?

This is a real question, you have a unique view from the inside and I
may need to make similar arguments some day.  Frankly, it doesn't sound
to me like you had the faintest chance of convincing them!

Which is too bad, I use OS X, and I'd like to be able to script it with
lua. On the other hand, I'd rather learn js than applescript, so there
is some good news there.

Sam