Re: S.W.O.T analysis

[Jimmie Houchin <jlhouchin@...>]

On 10/19/2011 7:12 AM, steve donovan wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 1:54 PM, Patrick Mc(avery
> <patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org>  wrote:
> > If Python runs something in 200ms and Lua runs it in 50ms I don't
care, it's
> > still a blink of an eye.
>
> Ah, but many of us work with dinky little processors, and even now
> that smartphones are more powerful than 70s mainframes, you still have
> the iron law that inefficiency is costly in power use.  Battery
> evolution has been fantastic, but there are limits.
>
> > Python is so much easier to learn then Lua
>
> Not sure how generally true that is. If we took some young noobs and
> gave them a feature-rich Lua environment, then I think there's less
> gotchas than in Python, which has so many types and special syntax to
> handle them.  ('feature-rich' is however the catch!)

I agree. I use Python regularly because I am familiar with it. It has 
lots of libraries. But I never use it long enough to become really good 
at it, because it is too easy to bang your head against syntax issues. 
Its been too long, so I don't remember what they are.

Lua on the other I believe is simpler and much more consistent. I 
believe Lua the language can be reasonably understood and potentially 
mastered. Now I mean that withing the context of your use. I am not a C 
user, so I would not necessarily understand embedding or using those 
features.

I would dearly love Lua to have sufficient libraries to reduce or 
eliminate any need or desire for me to use Python.

It wouldn't have to be a part of Lua proper, (core/kernel/...?). But 
could simply be a Lua distribution which is full featured.

Is this "feature-rich" Lua environment available anywhere?

I am presently using Lua for Windows. I don't know what Python has that 
it doesn't. From brief usage of the Lua interpreter or the iLua (Lua 
Friendly Command Line), it seems much more primitive than any of the 
Python interpreters, especially IPython.

I also haven't seen any IDE which is as friendly as PyDev. Scite is not 
bad, and it could be better. One nice thing is that Scite is not a big 
memory hog, like most Java based IDEs. I am primarily talking about the 
editor features.

I think Lua hits a pretty nice sweet spot.
When I watch videos like
Clojure's Rich Hickey, www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy
or Stuart Holloway,
  http://blip.tv/clojure/stuart-halloway-simplicity-ain-t-easy-4842694

I think a feature-rich Lua both in environment and libraries could be an 
excellent solution for solving problems in a manner Rich Hickey describes.

I do not know how far or how close Lua is to any of this. But I do know 
that the Lua out of the box experience isn't as feature-rich as other 
languages. I don't know how to get my environment there. And I think 
that is a shame, because Lua is a beautiful language.

I am open to learning anything that gets my Lua setup and experience 
closer to what I can experience in Python. And actually I find the 
Python experience primitive, as I am a long time Smalltalker. :)

Jimmie Houchin