These are helpful, thanks. There are a few tiny points though:
Bigbass wrote:
Many of Lua's quirks are those that typical uses likely won't encounter anyways.
No const globals and undecorated assignment defaulting to global initialisation are highly visible and simply insane. I know metatables can work around them but at that point it's just a tarpit. Other languages' quirks can't compare to that. Again, not unusable, even charming; just annoying. I don't want to spend too much time on this though because this isn't a hate thread.
Bigbass wrote:
The more popular, the more resources there are, and more people to offer help when someone has questions.
Yep, that's true. Familiarity is huge, and often outweighs any technical benefit of something new. So any existing emulator (or application of any kind, really) making a full switch is a bad move; the purpose of this question, though, is to see how such a contender could become a better option for new projects.
Bigbass wrote:
There's a lot of superfluous syntax which gives off a strong esoteric vibe.
Simply false. The syntax simply descends from a different family, and there are enormous benefits to it (macros which don't suck, one-pass compiler which is actually decent).
Bigbass wrote:
It has been reimplemented probably hundreds of times, across many different languages.
There are hundreds of bindings to it, but as far as I know only two implementations: PUC and LuaJIT. Every application with a Lua VM embeds one of these as a library, and every binding communicates through the C ABI (which just about any worthwhile language can do). So Janet and Wren are only behind Lua in not having an official spec, which I do admit is a significant point against.
Bigbass wrote:
Also not seeing any clear way of extending the provided functions, may not even be possible.
It is 100%possible. Lumping the whole API into a table will be awkward in Janet (though still possible), probably easier in Wren, I don't know; but no respectable "Lua-like" would ever not offer host extension.
Near as I can tell, every single emulator with scripting capabilities uses Lua for them, and we've all seen just how awesome the result can be. My question, to the very few of you who care at all is: what is it about Lua that makes it the only contender in this space? More precisely, where does a language like Janet or Wren fall short, outside of popularity (which doesn't immediately translate to UX here)?
I ask because I like Janet, that is the concept of it and the way the project is run, and Lua has thousands of tiny quirks, which are charming but can grate. It would be helpful to know what Janet could do better to fit into this niche, if not for any established emulator then perhaps for some headstrong projects in the future.
(i don't have a game. this is just a silly idea i had)
I'd make the credits show all the optional objectives completed, and have a special end screen for 100%; then, I'd make it so the very first time the game is booted up (and only the first time), you could input nothing at all for four hours, then it would automatically save a 100% completed file and roll credits on it. First ever 0-frame TAS, ends input early!
Yeah this is stupid. But hey, something had to be my first submission. Hello.