Re: Making Lua accessible to everyone

> * 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.

Good points!

> Ruining things for the sake of being popular is no fun. Being popular for one's awesomeness seems great though.

I totally agree. One does not exclude the other.

> I want my languages to be good, but I also enjoy to see my code being
> *used*.

I think what we're getting at here is that as long as we don't "sell out," popularity is beneficial both to the Lua programming language and the Lua developers.

I imagine Lua Forum to be one of many ways that makes Lua more accessible, especially to beginners.

And I hope more of you join LuaForum.com

Btw, I'm preparing for my exams and I may be slow to answer sometimes.

On Mon, Nov 16, 2020 at 10:02 PM Albert Krewinkel <albert+lua@zeitkraut.de> wrote:

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
GPG: 8eed e3e2 e8c5 6f18 81fe e836 388d c0b2 1f63 1124