Re: Has Lua reached perfection?

[Paige DePol <lual@...>]

Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile@majumdar.org.uk> wrote:

> On 28 January 2018 at 01:06, Paige DePol <lual@serfnet.org> wrote:
>> One of my goals with Lua++ is to allow fully backwards compatible parsing
>> of Lua code, which will be placed fully in a namespace. If the backwards
>> compatibility is not necessary then it can be compiled without that support,
>> much as Lua does for it's own compatibility. Other than adding new features
>> to the language I have tried to keep the existing syntax as compatible as
>> possible, however, my parser will have two modes available when parsing
>> source code; Lua mode and Lua++ mode as there are some syntax differences.
> 
> I think it is very hard to get traction on any new language ... there
> have been several clones of Lua; not sure any of them succeeded. Even
> though Ravi is a superset of Lua 5.3, and adds a JIT, I am not sure
> anyone is using it - and that is after 2 years of development. I have
> watched some languages try for 10 years or more to establish
> themselves but they are still struggling. My advice would be to
> maintain 100% compatible with Lua - at least that way users who
> currently use Lua can try out your language without having to rewrite
> / change their existing code.

For sure, this really is one reason why I want to maintain compatibility
with Lua... honestly, if I didn't I don't think the name Lua++ would even
be appropriate to use! ;)

I have wanted to have "my own" programming language for years, but never
really knew were to start... Lua has provided me with a great learning
opportunity and I am taking advantage of it as much as I can.

Honestly, even if nobody ever uses Lua++ it is the learning experience
that I am doing it for. I am trying my best to build the system up as
a series of patches that people can apply individually to Lua as well
for creating their own custom builds of the language.

Most of my coding career, before my partner got sick and I have had to
take care of her full time, has been writing code for other people. At
least now I am writing code for myself, and hopefully building up a bit
of a portfolio via Lua patches and eventually Lua++ itself.

I have been keeping an eye on Ravi, by the way, as you've been working
on the various JIT methods. One day I would like to add JIT to Lua++ and
I hope the work you're doing now will be of some use to me in the future!

Keep up the good work, and good luck to you on Ravi as well! :)

~Paige