lua-users wiki: Lua Comparison (original) (raw)

There are lots of languages out there. Here is how Lua compares with some of them.

One-to-one

Java``Script

[Learning Lua from JS] - similarities and differences.
[Lua vs Javascript] - explains why Media``Wiki will use Lua[1] instead of Javascript as a new template scripting language.

Falcon

[Comparison of Falcon, Python, Ruby, PHP5, Lua, and Perl] (Falcon website)

Lisp/Scheme

The [Metalua Manual] provides some contrasts between Lua and Scheme: "Basically, Lua could be thought of as Scheme, with: a conventional syntax (similar to Pascal's or Ruby's); the associative table as basic datatype instead of the list; no full continuations (although coroutines are actually one-shot semi-continuations); no macro system." Metalua brings a macro system into Lua for compile-time metaprogramming (CTMP). There is also a preliminary implementation of [Lisp in Lua].

For those comfortable with Scheme, Guile may be a better solution. Lua has a bent towards scripting and configuration by "non-programmers", where infix syntax may be more appealing. Lua is also often used as a stand-alone language, which in the Scheme world is more the domain of scsh than Guile. Guile is significantly larger than Lua.

Neko

[A comparison of Neko and Lua] (Neko website), LuaList:2006-09/threads.html#00598

Objective C

Broad view

[Is Lua interesting, from a programming language design perspective?] on Stack Overflow.
[Why choose Lua?] on lua.org - main philosophical points impacting its design
[ACM: Passing a Language through the Eye of a Needle] - article on how the embeddability of Lua impacted its design (R. Ierusalimschy, L. Henrique de Figueiredo, W. Celes)

Benchmarks

[Game Scripting Languages] is a page with benchmarks for game scripting languages (Lua, AngelScript?, GameMonkey?, Pawn, and Squirrel).
[Experiments with Scripting and User-Interface Language] is a paper by Kernighan and Van Wyk that benchmarks several scripting languages. An [implementation] (link broken) of these benchmarks in Lua is available.
[The Computer Language Benchmarks Game] (an updated version of Doug Bagley's original The Great Computer Language Shootout [4]) is an ongoing benchmark of many languages, including Lua. A Windows version [5] is also available.
[Fractal Benchmark] - this comparision focuses on a program to compute the Mandelbrot set in several languages including Ruby, Io, PHP, Python, Lua, Java, Haskell, and Plain C.

Language comparisons

[99 Bottles of Beer]: [Lua entry].
[Andreas' practical language comparison].
[Hello You]: [Lua entry].
[Hello World!].
[Michael Neumann's big language comparison].
[OO Shape Examples].
[ROT13]: [Lua entry].
[The Quine Page]: [Lua entry]. Quine[6] is a program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output.
[Scriptometer].
[SICP Translation].
[Syntax accross languages]. (Big page!)
[Rosetta Code]: [Lua entry].
Pages where Lua is missing, we should contribute:
- [PLEAC - Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook].