What programming language do you find similar to LUA

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Well, title says everything.

I know lua, html, css, and a bit of java.

Usually when someone asks me what LUA is like, all I can say is that it is really easy.

Is LUA similar to C# or somethin’ ?

#2

Of the languages that I know the closest is javascript. c# is closer to Java than Lua. Or maybe old school perl before he got modernized.

Adrian

#3

Maybe a little like Boo?

#4

I think Boo is statically typed and objected oriented. Lua is not (at least not out of the box).

#5

@agramonte,  Yeah, you’re probably right.  

I guess Lua is like Lua.  i.e. Pretty unique.

Note: There are plenty of histories of Lua, but I found this one a good read: 

https://www.lua.org/doc/hopl.pdf

PS - The article says Lua is similar to Scheme (not syntactically though which is the way you are asking the question I think), but I don’t know scheme so I can’t confirm that.

#6

IMHO… Lua is more like BASIC than any other language.  Java, JavaScript, PHP, C#, C++, parts of Objective C and even partially Swift all inherit their core from C.  That is you write your if statements like:

if (a\>b) {      doSomething(); }

They start varying when you start treating objects differently.  (PHP of course prefixes all variables and such with $ signs).  A C based for loop looks like:

for(i=0;i\<10;i++) { &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;doSomething(); }

Lua’s core language is more keyword base:

if a\>b then &nbsp; &nbsp; doSomething() end for i=0, 9, 1 do &nbsp; &nbsp; doSomething() end

BASIC is more keyword driven (THEN, DO, END) as opposed to using {} curly braces to define blocks. Lua supports some C like features (ending each line with a semi-colon, adding parens around conditions) that are optional where they are required in the C family of languages.

Rob

#7

Thanks for all your resposes!

I always thought java was a bit like LUA but after diving into a bit of BASIC, I think that is a little more similar.

Thanks!

#8

Of the languages that I know the closest is javascript. c# is closer to Java than Lua. Or maybe old school perl before he got modernized.

Adrian

#9

Maybe a little like Boo?

#10

I think Boo is statically typed and objected oriented. Lua is not (at least not out of the box).

#11

@agramonte,  Yeah, you’re probably right.  

I guess Lua is like Lua.  i.e. Pretty unique.

Note: There are plenty of histories of Lua, but I found this one a good read: 

https://www.lua.org/doc/hopl.pdf

PS - The article says Lua is similar to Scheme (not syntactically though which is the way you are asking the question I think), but I don’t know scheme so I can’t confirm that.

#12

IMHO… Lua is more like BASIC than any other language.  Java, JavaScript, PHP, C#, C++, parts of Objective C and even partially Swift all inherit their core from C.  That is you write your if statements like:

if (a\>b) { &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;doSomething(); }

They start varying when you start treating objects differently.  (PHP of course prefixes all variables and such with $ signs).  A C based for loop looks like:

for(i=0;i\<10;i++) { &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;doSomething(); }

Lua’s core language is more keyword base:

if a\>b then &nbsp; &nbsp; doSomething() end for i=0, 9, 1 do &nbsp; &nbsp; doSomething() end

BASIC is more keyword driven (THEN, DO, END) as opposed to using {} curly braces to define blocks. Lua supports some C like features (ending each line with a semi-colon, adding parens around conditions) that are optional where they are required in the C family of languages.

Rob

#13

Thanks for all your resposes!

I always thought java was a bit like LUA but after diving into a bit of BASIC, I think that is a little more similar.

Thanks!