Re: Is Lua the next big thing?

[Brent Fulgham <bfulg@...>]

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On Mar 12, 2007, at 10:18 AM, Grellier, Thierry wrote:

> I was actually kind of competing with a veteran python programmer  
> and at
> this particular time he had much more free time than I had to work on
> this, and I was still in my learning curve for Lua. He was also  
> strongly
> motivated keeping python in use there, instead of learning new stuff.
>
> So I must correct myself on what I said it was not possible to do  
> what I
> wanted with lua, but I didn't see how to do it in the allocated time.
> Maybe lua gems or pil2 would have helped to find a solution faster.
>
> So I think the limit of extensive usage Lua, is that the  
> organizations,
> prone to use it, may already use another script language and thus may
> not be very eager to migrate.

Yes -- I'm in a similar situation, except that I have to ability to  
perhaps force the issue on others.  But I wish to make the right  
decision, and right now I am trying to decide the best choice for an  
embedding and extension language (for an application written in C++)  
between Lua and Python.

The main advantages for Python:
1.  Customer base *might* be more likely to know it.
2.  Other developers are familiar with Python already.
3.  The existing NumPy and similar libraries are attractive for our  
use in a scientific analysis role.

The main advantages for Lua:
1.  Small runtime.
2.  Wonderful theoretical foundation.
3.  Seems like it might be very easy to embed and extend.

There certainly seem to be many good success stories for Lua, but  
this doesn't necessarily spell success for me.

My main concern is threading support.  Our application is heavily  
threaded, and I want to ensure that any embedded scripting engine is  
able to be isolated from other threads.  I have spent quite a bit of  
time cleaning up an earlier home-grown interpreter (previously  
created in a typical fit of NIH syndrome) that had horrible thread  
isolation problems (such that if the same loop variable was used in  
two separate instances of the interpreter, both variables would be  
incremented during the loop).  Needless to say, it's not hard to  
exceed this level of quality but not that I've cleaned up the old  
mess, I want to *enhance* things, rather than run the risk of  
creating new problems.

If anyone can give me a pep talk about Lua in a C++ environment, I'd  
love to be pointed to any references or success stories.  I have just  
read Roberto's Lua book (2nd Edition) but don't have much practical  
experience with the language.

Thanks,

- -Brent
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