Python vs Lua (Was: S.W.O.T analysis)

[Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@...>]

2011/10/21 Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>:
> "Patrick Mc(avery" <patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org> writes:
>> Python is so much easier to learn then Lua
>
> It isn't.
>
> Or rather, there's nothing about the _language_ that makes Python
> "easier" -- but it has better library support, better infrastructure
> support, many more eyes on it, more communities, more examples, and
> many more people who know it and are willing to help their friends.
> _That's_ why it's "easy" to learn Python.
>
> If you want to make Lua similarly "easy", the language itself has
> little to do with it.
>
>
I'll confess, I used to be a Pythonista.  I'm still a seasonal one:
once a year I teach a course on Sage, which is built on top of Python.
 That season is now, so yesterday I wrote a Python program, as
follows:

~~~~
def perms(a):
   if len(a)==1: return [a]
   return [[a[k]]+p for k in range(len(a)) for p in perms(a[:k]+a[k+1:]) ]

def cubes():
   main = [tuple([1,2]+p) for p in perms([3,4,5,6])]+[
       tuple([1,3]+p+[2]) for p in perms([4,5,6])]
   return [(m,(U,L,B,F,R,D),(U,B,R,L,F,D),(U,R,F,B,L,D))
       for m in main for U,F,L,R,B,D in [m]]

cube=cubes()
print '\n'.join(["%2i:  "%(k+1) + '  '.join(["%i%i%i-%i%i%i"%c
    for c in cube[k]]) for k in range(len(cube))])
~~~~

You don't immediately see what it does?  After all the trouble I've
taken to use descriptive names like "perms" and "cubes"?  You surprise
me.

That's Python.  Concise.  Hyper-elegannt.  Incomprehensible.  (Except
if you are a list, o0f course.)

Now imagine the same program in Lua.  Twice the length, written in
half the time.

Dirk