Colony, an experimental JavaScript-to-Lua compiler(github.com)
github.com
Colony, an experimental JavaScript-to-Lua compiler
https://github.com/timcameronryan/colony-js
5 comments
Interesting idea and possibly worth tossing out to the World of Warcraft addons/scripting community (single largest Lua end-user install base in the world, I believe) as well?
BTW, the name seems a bit tacky for a language developed in Brazil given the colonial history. Was there another reason for naming it that I've missed?
BTW, the name seems a bit tacky for a language developed in Brazil given the colonial history. Was there another reason for naming it that I've missed?
Hmm, you could target iphone wax https://github.com/probablycorey/wax to make a coffescript dev environment for iOS. Wax is a really nice environment.
Using javascript as a language instead of Lua for scripting though seems odd, as Lua is pretty easy to use instead.
Using javascript as a language instead of Lua for scripting though seems odd, as Lua is pretty easy to use instead.
If you like CoffeeScript you should try out http://moonscript.org
CoffeeScript inspired syntax that compiles right to Lua.
CoffeeScript inspired syntax that compiles right to Lua.
Lua is a great language. I personally would rather go the other way and use Lua instead of JS in the browser.
This is cool though from a hacking perspective. Good work.
This is cool though from a hacking perspective. Good work.
In which cases would anyone need:
- to write code in JS rather than in Lua;
- and run the result on a platform which supports Lua but not JS?
Except in a Dilbert-like situation, where a clueless middle manager decides that using a dirty hack is safer than letting JS programmers take the 2 days it would take them to become very proficient in Lua, I can't think of one.
- to write code in JS rather than in Lua;
- and run the result on a platform which supports Lua but not JS?
Except in a Dilbert-like situation, where a clueless middle manager decides that using a dirty hack is safer than letting JS programmers take the 2 days it would take them to become very proficient in Lua, I can't think of one.
Many C applications use Lua as an embedded scripting language. This program would be very useful if the developers of the application wanted to extend scripting support to Javascript (and compile-to-JS languages) without having to modify their C code.
But a transcompiler will always be a kludge, at least when the target language hasn't been designed as a bytecode.
Most importantly, I'd bet that the intersection of developers who:
(1) can write good software; and
(2) Can write decent JS code, but can't become proficient in Lua within a couple of days;
is mostly empty.
Most importantly, I'd bet that the intersection of developers who:
(1) can write good software; and
(2) Can write decent JS code, but can't become proficient in Lua within a couple of days;
is mostly empty.
But if they are developers why would they not want to modify their own C code (to add an embeddable JS interpreter?)
js interpreters are not as friendly as lua for embedding.
Exactly, I've worked with the Lua C API before, it was fairly easy to use. I've looked at the V8 API before. Compared to Lua, it is far more complicated.
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The fun thing about transpilers is that you can chain them together. Waiting to see some C stuff ported to Lua using Emscripten via JS.
Perhaps the best way to write a transpiler so there's no bugs is to write two of them at the same time, i.e. in this case Lua-to-JS and JS-to-Lua. Maybe it's easier to catch bugs.
This mirrors the idea of writing a compiler for a new language in itself as soon as possible.
This mirrors the idea of writing a compiler for a new language in itself as soon as possible.
Get a Clue: http://cluecc.sourceforge.net/
Decent timing from LuaJIT1 when it was generating "dirty" Lua bytecode.
Decent timing from LuaJIT1 when it was generating "dirty" Lua bytecode.
I remember google's dart that compiled to javascript which ran 7% as fast as hand-written javascript. I wonder what the performance for this will be compared to handwritten lua? I've tried wrapping everything into tables like this in lua, and there definitely is a performance penalty.
I guess programmers will always be programmers. "Ooo look, this year CPU speed has quadtripled! Let's make a compiler for X to Y which will reduce performance by only 75%; It means you can run it at the same speed as running hand-written Y last year!"
I'll cringe when I see someone creating a WoW addon using this.
I guess programmers will always be programmers. "Ooo look, this year CPU speed has quadtripled! Let's make a compiler for X to Y which will reduce performance by only 75%; It means you can run it at the same speed as running hand-written Y last year!"
I'll cringe when I see someone creating a WoW addon using this.
Since it's a source-to-source compiler, you can use Colony generally wherever Lua source is required. For example, I was able to follow the beginners tutorials of the Corona SDK (http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/, a cross-platform mobile SDK that uses Lua) by programming CoffeeScript instead, which was surprisingly fun.