Re: Why nobody talks about Lua

[Timothy Hunter <rmagick@...>]

On Feb 14 Feb 14 4:56 AM, Alex Combas wrote:
> So you can say that there is no reason to talk about Lua because it just
> works, but silence certainly isn't helping anything, and I think everyone
> realizes that Lua could certainly use more community support.
>    
I disagree. It seems to me that it's doing just fine. Lua has a strong 
and dedicated community. Maybe they don't proselytize as much as the 
Python/Ruby crowd, but to me that's a boon instead of a curse.

I started using Ruby about a year before Rails hit the streets. After 
Rails, along with Ruby's growth in popularity came throngs of 
programmer-wannabes who didn't know what a machine register is, how to 
do I/O, or the difference between binary floating-point and decimal 
floating-point arithmetic. I'd just as soon that not happen to Lua. One 
of the reasons I like Lua is that the community is generally an 
experienced and skilled bunch who understand what Lua is good for and 
know how to use Lua to get the job done. I kinda like hanging out with 
that bunch.

Lua is a programming language. It doesn't benefit from notoriety or 
buzz. More "talk" will just attract the attention of guys who are just 
looking for the next shiny thing to exploit on their blogs, their books, 
their resumes, or their conference presentations.

I didn't need to point to any Dzone or reddit links to persuade my 
management that Lua was the right tool for the job we needed to do. My 
management wanted to know what Lua was, not who was talking about it.