Tcl vs. Lua
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From: Ian Bell on 30 Dec 2005 08:51 Lisa Pearlson wrote: > Thank you.. This was very helpful.. it tells me I shouldn't bother with > Lua, .. or do I? > They say it's used a lot for "Games programming". What makes it suitable > for games programming, other than it's cross platform features? Doesn't > cross platform usually means it can't take advantage of hardware > specifics? > I suspect SDL is used a lot more for games programming and I think you will find a Tcl extension that supports it on the wiki. Ian
From: Gerald W. Lester on 30 Dec 2005 09:26 Lisa Pearlson wrote: > ... > The way I heard about Lua was when I was looking for a "Setup Wizard" type > program to create installers for my own software, like Install Shield, Wise, > etc. I came across one that featured embedded "Lua scripting" to do install > operations. > But wouldn't TCL be much more suitable for this? I sure thing so. Yes, take a look at: http://www.installjammer.com/
From: Jeff Godfrey on 30 Dec 2005 09:34 "Ian Bell" <ruffrecords(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:dp3duh$lb7$2(a)slavica.ukpost.com... > Lisa Pearlson wrote: > >> Thank you.. This was very helpful.. it tells me I shouldn't bother >> with >> Lua, .. or do I? >> They say it's used a lot for "Games programming". What makes it >> suitable >> for games programming, other than it's cross platform features? >> Doesn't >> cross platform usually means it can't take advantage of hardware >> specifics? >> > > I suspect SDL is used a lot more for games programming and I think > you will > find a Tcl extension that supports it on the wiki. > > Ian Lua does seem to be quite popular in the gaming world - though not usually for writing the actual game, but for providing it's scriptable components. Many modern games are scriptable in one form or another, and many developers are now choosing to use an off-the-shelf scripting solution rather than trying to develop one specifically for their game (which adds to development time and cost, and ultimately - time to market). When that's the situation, Lua does seem very popular. I don't know enough about it to say for sure, but I suspect its popularity in that arena is related to it's size, speed, and simplicity. Jeff
From: Cameron Laird on 30 Dec 2005 10:08 In article <1135902376.793251.228540(a)g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, slebetman(a)yahoo.com <slebetman(a)gmail.com> wrote: . . . >I'd think Tcl would be perfect for this since this sort of stuff >involves a lot of text processing. > >> It seems Lua's strengths is smaller footprint and better performance than >> TCL. And they said it runs on mobile devices too. TCL is too slow for mobile >> devices, I was told on here. >> > >Tcl runs fine on mobile devices - better than Java IMHO since Tcl uses >less RAM. The Tcl interpreter is usually the first interpreter to be >ported on small platforms. But since Lua is so small, I suspect it uses >even less resource than Tcl. But saying Tcl is slow for mobile devices >is just plain wrong since the same mobile devices are usually designed >to run Java. > Please point me to the person who told you that, "TCL is too slow for mobile devices". As it stands, that's simply not true. slebetman, do you truly believe that Tcl is inappropriate for construction of installers because Tcl makes "text processing" too difficult? That doesn't make sense to me--particularly not with the evidence of <URL: http://wiki.tcl.tk/1896 >.
From: Donal K. Fellows on 30 Dec 2005 17:26
slebetman(a)yahoo.com wrote: > But since Lua is so small, I suspect it uses even less resource than Tcl. Lua is definitely smaller than Tcl. It achieves this by leaving out lots of stuff, so much so that Lua is a language that is only usable in practice after extension (I think it doesn't have a full I/O system, for example). By contrast, you can do a lot in plain tclsh without binary packages, and many people do just that. What'll be interesting is to see if Lua grows over time like Tcl did. And if it does, what mistakes in the provided libraries do the Lua developers make. (If it doesn't grow, it'll remain a niche language, used in embedded situations where the programmer hasn't heard of Forth.) Donal. |