[q2x] Alive

Nick Trout nick at rockstarvancouver.com
Fri Aug 8 00:40:04 EDT 2003



> > Mmmm, that does look quite interesting. Would you support Lua as
> > well?
> 
> I'm not sure.  I like Lua, in theory, but in practice it always seems
> to irritate me with something =)

How so? I realise it has its quirks, just like anything else, but slowly
it's evolving.

> > I was hoping that q2x would develop into a Lua tutorial type
> > project. What do you see as the main advantages of using Io over
> > Lua?
> 
> The primary advantages are stated on their Web page, but the major
> things (for me) are:
> 
> - an object model that I'm more comfortable with (it directly handles
> OO messaging instead of emulating it as in Lua)

It could also complicate matters for functional programmers! :)

> - tricolor incremental GC instead of the hiccup prone GC that Lua has

This does sound interesting. Lua has IGC on the way but it does seem to
be slow coming. Still, when the Lua authors do deliver it's usually
pretty well thought out and very stable.

> That's really the major stuff.  It does have several downsides:
> 
> - very poor documentation (not that Lua is that much better, but Lua
> is much more mature)
> 
> - relatively new, which means it can be a moving target somewhat (same
> thing with Lua), and it's not fully debugged

Mmmm this would put me off. I think that has been one of the pluses for
Lua for me is that there a so few bug reports once it's released.

> I'm not making any decisions just yet, I still need to get the primary
> tree cleaned up massively before I do the first public check-in.  I
> really want the code to be relatively clean and solid before we start
> monkeying around with it.

Righto. I'm pretty snowed under with work but I'll try and find time to
help out if you go with Lua as I like the cut of this projects jib.

Nick






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