Re: When to use Lua

["Ken Smith" <kgsmith@...>]

On 9/26/06, Jason T. Slack <appleslack@gmail.com> wrote:
> I stumbled upon Lua when reading about Adobe Lightroom.
>
> I write a text editor and backup software, under what circumstances
> would I want to use Lua in my applications? What does it do for me?

This is a big question but, as a very new Lua user, let me tell you
places where I will use Lua from now on.

- configuration files
  Forget .ini and its ilk.  Lua is simple and lightweight enough to
use for this
  basic service.

- exposing program internals to savvy end users
  Perhaps your editor could use a scripting language for automation?

- real programs
  In the future, when I write a program in C or C++, I will do all I can to
  write the bulk of it in Lua and only use C/C++ to expose otherwise
unavailable
  system internals.  Hashtables are the king of datastructures and I
starting to
  wonder why I ever need anything else :)

 Ken Smith