Re: [Q] simple translator from Lua to Java Script and PHP

[Javier Guerra Giraldez <javier@...>]

On Saturday 29 November 2008, Fabien wrote:
> I've just written and put online an AST --> Lua source converter. While it
> doesn't translate into a different target language, it shows how to
> systematically walk through an AST, to produce a different representation
> of it. This makes it a decent starting point for a Lua --> anything-else
> converter, although it wasn't its original purpose

that's interesting; just yesterday i was checking the source of pyjs 
(Python->JavaScript compiler, part of the Pyjamas project).  it's very 
simple, because Python includes some libraries to analyse the AST of compiled 
chunks.

Of course, a language like Python, where most of the power comes from 
extensive syntactic sugar, seems almost trivial when you read the AST instead 
of the source.  In Lua, most of the power comes from the choice in 
primitives, so you're still facing the reimplementation of most of what makes 
Lua, Lua.  prime examples are the flexibility of tables (versus Python 
dictionaries and JS objects), and coroutines (versus generator-specific 
constructs in Python and.... well, i don't think JS has anything like this).

still, having the AST easily readable is a big first step towards a 
Lua -->anything-else compiler.

-- 
Javier

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