Re: BASIC-like Lua variant

[Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@...>]

On Thursday, January 16, 2014, Peter Hickman <peterhickman386@googlemail.com> wrote:

On 15 January 2014 19:10, Fabien <fleutot+lua@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 7:45 PM, Marc Balmer <marc@msys.ch> wrote:

Am 14.01.2014 12:26, schrieb colinz@gmx.com:

Is there some Lua variant or module that lets the programmer use a more
BASIC-like syntax? Would this be even possible?

no.

To elaborate a bit on Marc's true but terse answer: it would be possible to make some tweaks to Lua's syntax, which would make it look more similar to BASIC. But it would hurt BASIC people, not help them.

To extend on this. There was a movement a long time ago (disclaimer - I am old) to give C a Pascal like syntax. The purpose was to make it easier for university graduates that had been taught Pascal as part of their degree adapt to a programming language that employers actually wanted. All it resulted in was Pascal programmers programming C as if it was Pascal and failing to utilise the power of C.

It was a bad idea then. It is still a bad idea.

It's funny that you bring this up. I was just telling my 15 year C++ veteran co-worker, and newbie to Lua, that his early Lua code looked like he was programming C inside of Lua. 

Lua seemed like stupid, slow C to him then. Now, a good day involves deleting hundreds of line of C and replacing it with Lua. The line count is usually about a third.