I've looked at lua a little, but I really like Smalltalk syntax. :-) It seems there are several prototype based systems (including IO the language) but they all seem to start out thinking Smalltalk (or Self) keyword syntax is a problem, whereas for me I see it as a solution.
All the best. You might find our free software, especially the PlantStudio program, of interest for homeschooling for your kids. :-) That's the biggest thing I want to port to a dynamic language like Squeak or Python (from Delphi).
--Paul Fernhout
Jimmie Houchin wrote:
Hello Paul,
Interesting article. I am still looking at the linked material.
Have you looked at Lua?
A very interesting language that I like a lot. It is very small has some Smalltalk like characteristics, but is a Prototype language. Actually it seems to handle various paradigms quite well. It has objects, prototypes, modules, closures, coroutines, tail-recursive, etc. and a very clean and small implementation in C. Very, very portable, embeddable, and very fast. Compare it to Ruby, Python and GST on Alioth. It integrates easily and well with libraries written in C, etc. It is the scripting language built into SciTE.
Its biggest weakness for me and many, is that it does not currently have a rich set of libraries. But I believe that is very doable. I would love to see Lua with a rich set of libraries like Python's. But it is not without libraries. One would just need to see if it has what one needs.
I much prefer it as a language to both Python and Ruby. Its syntax is clean and nice. I find it easier to think in Lua than either Python or Ruby. And as one who is not a computer professional, the fact that I can read the book over and over is a big plus. I finally understand closures. :) (at least as presented in PIL2)
I am hoping that someday soon that libraries could be written for Lua and it have an equally rich system as Python or Ruby. A rich Lua system arriving around or before Python 3, Ruby 2, etc. would provide for an interesting alternative. And I don't believe it would have to equal Python's or Ruby's to be an excellent alternative to Python or Ruby.
It isn't perfect. But I think its problems are definitely fixable.
Lua is MIT licensed. So it is compatible with anything you want to do.
Just wanted to toss that out there. Didn't quite mean to get so evangelistic on the Squeak-list. But oh well. I love Squeak. But I've learned to love Lua also. I just tolerate Python, no love. :)
Again thanks for the essay.
Jimmie Houchin Homeschooling father of 9 ;) Yes I read your writings on edu-sig.