uses of metalua for scripting
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- Subject: uses of metalua for scripting
- From: spir <denis.spir@...>
- Date: 2012年11月01日 09:09:12 +0100
Hello,
I'm currently re-discovering metalua and find it great -- after a trip in the
world of FP which let me explore parser combinators from a different perspective.
One of my remote projects is a scriptable game (à la Wesnoth, but far simpler
and with some differences in principles) for which Lua (with Löve, & delegation
to plain C for critical pathes) is rather close to be an ideal language.
However, on the scripting side for users, a few conceptual points are
problematic for me [*]. I would really like to open the door to potential
programmers, meaning people who may enjoy it.
Thus, metalua. Are there projects using it in a similar spirit?
Denis
[*] I don't intend to launch a discussion on this topic, reason for the
footnote. Some of those points derive form (old) experiences with potential
programmers. Here are a few things I'd change. They are mainly about confusion
in the language of --for me-- semantically different notions:
* equality is "=", assignment is ":" or "::"
* definition (symbol creation) is ":", redefinition (symbol change) is "::"
(This may also solve the 'global' issue in many cases: one could not change
_G.x by inattention.)
* composite data (record, object, tuple) is {...}, collection data (mainly
sequence) is []
* every structured data type has a standard 'tostring'
* maybe no complex expression with precedence (every subexp is grouped in (...))
* One point probably unsolvable is the confusion between genuine function
(computes a result) and action
(performs an effect). Anyway, the use of the "return channel" to signal
errors is well established and well
done in Lua, so...
* Ideally, I'd also love a different model for variable strings, à la Cobra, where
"Hello [n] times, [username]!"
means
string.format("Hello %d times, %s!", n, username)
but this gets complicated when mixing user and programmer feedback (for
debug, testing, maintenance),
as ideal default formats are different (eg for programmer differentiating 132
& "132").
* Finally, only one syntax for function defs, namely like other defs:
f = function (p) ... end
Don't know about 'methods'.
[Please, if you like to talk of such things, do it off-list.]