Re: Making Lua accessible to everyone

[Albert Krewinkel <albert+lua@...>]

James Darnley writes:

> On 12/11/2020, Sorn Županić Maksumić <maksumic.sorn@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The reason I'm sending this email is that I want to
>> make Lua accessible to everyone, especially beginners.
>
> Why?  Popularity ruins everything.

Couple of reasons:

 * Makes it easier to justify using Lua in a program;
 * less effort required to teach users;
 * higher popularity means more devs means more people doing cool stuff
   (I like cool stuff);
 * being popular can lead to support through big companies, which,
   again, leads to better language infra.

Take Haskell, which has the motto "avoid success at all costs". I think
it is a good motto when parsed as "avoid (success at all costs)."
Ruining things for the sake of being popular is no fun. Being popular
for one's awesomeness seems great though.

I want my languages to be good, but I also enjoy to see my code being
*used*. Being able to condescendingly tell people about how my obscure
language is far superior is pretty far down on my list of priorities.[^1]



[^1]: OK, fine. I *may* sometimes get that snobbish facial expression
      when I tell people that Lua is "like JavaScript, but without the
      bad parts". But that's entirely Lua's fault. ;)


--
Albert Krewinkel
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