Re: Why isn't Lua more widely used?

[Tim Caswell <tim@...>]

Popularity is a fickle thing.  I work deeply in the NodeJS system.
The growing popularity has been an interesting trend.  Sure it brings
more users, mode modules, more media, more paying jobs, etc..  But it
also brings more headaches, more bad code, more trolls, more political
complexities.  Some days I miss the early days of node when the API
changed every day and only a handful of people in the world knew about
it.  But at the same time I couldn't get a job in node then either.

The thing I really like about Lua is the awesomely clean language and
the materialistic implementation.  I wrote Luvit as a Lua version of
Node.JS as an experiment.  It has gathered some interest and in many
respects reminds me of the early days of node.  I have no idea if it
will ever "make the big time", if there will be a "Luvit Conf" or
books at written about it.

What I do know is that I can write servers using it today.  They will
be simple to understand and very fast.  I can write games and embedded
utilities with it.

Maybe something like Luvit will help Lua get more popular, maybe it
won't.  I really have no idea.  The best we can do is just focus on
making software that makes people's lives happier.

-Tim Caswell

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 3:47 AM, sergei karhof <karhof21@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why isn't Lua more widely used?
> Granted, being a script language, Lua can only hope for a niche
> position, and can never become as popular as C or C++.
> However, why is Lua *so much* underrated, compared to Javascript, for
> instance? Could not Lua be used in browsers and do as much a good job
> as Javascript? I mentioned browsers, but my point is more general.
>