Re: From Lua to Python?

[Jakub Jirutka <jakub@...>]

> On 1. Jul 2017, at 21:17, Jay Carlson <nop@nop.com> wrote:
> 
> There’s a project nobody’s done: Clone the Python library designs in Lua. Map them one-to-one to Lua when the languages are close enough; subset them if necessary; omit if rarely used, or silly for Lua. Heck, prototype it with a Lua bridge for Python!

Pardon, why Python’s stdlib(?) and not some other?

Does Python have the best stdlib and third-party libraries? I really don’t think so. Actually I’m quite convinced that it does not have, especially stdlib is IMHO very bad; full of inconsistencies, bloat, various oddities, bad design, legacy bloat… I would really don’t wanna use any port of Python stdlib in Lua.

Is Python close to Lua? No, it’s really not. I think that the closest to Lua is JavaScript. They have in common even that aspect of very concise stdlib.

If you need some big battery of common functions, then you can use e.g. Penlight [1], Microlight [2], lua-stdlib [3] or any other. You can choose whatever libraries suite your needs and taste or write your own, without always installing ~50 MiB of bloat you will never use…

I’m not saying that Lua and its ecosystem is perfect and there’s no problem. But do you really want Lua to be like Python? For me, that would be very disappointing. Maybe I should also mention that I’m quite new to Lua and it’s like 7th language I’ve learned (after Java, Ruby, Python, …).

Jakub

[1]: https://github.com/stevedonovan/Penlight
[2]: https://github.com/stevedonovan/Microlight
[3]: https://github.com/lua-stdlib/lua-stdlib/