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Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

I'm happy with anything that gives Lua more exposure. It's a pretty language and it is so damn small, fast and embeddable.

Too many developers are using Javascript in places where Lua would be a far more appropriate option. Embedding, especially.

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Why is embedding Javascript inappropriate? Duktape has a similar codesize to Lua 5.3

http://duktape.org/index.html

In my opinion, Lua is better-designed language. JavaScript has horrible parts.

I've been developing game scripts with Lua and I've professional Javascript experience so I'm familiar with both. I actually find Javascript way more readable and easier to work with in general, especially with the new additions. I mean, it's yet another anecdote but just wanted to share.

Why do you say Lua is better designed? And are you comparing classic JS or ES6 JS? I like Lua but there are some things that just annoy me like indexing an array with 1, smaller standard library, etc. I find JS implementation of inheritance, objects, and prototyping better than Lua due to its simplicity.

1. Indexing an array with 1 is unfortunate but not a bad design decision in a vacuum, eg for i=1,#size is a very easy to understand loop over valid array indexes. I'll agree that it causes cognitive load in practice.

2. JS has a somewhat broken notion of objects and Lua's implementation is far cleaner while being as powerful. How do you use a JavaScript object as a hashmap? The default try is a potential security hole.

I agree. Both JS and Lua have a pretty limited standard library, but Lua is a dead simple language with a few simple mechanics that can be used to achieve complicated concepts.

I haven't got major experience in either language, but I find it much easier to read/understand/modify a moderately sized Lua project vs real world JavaScript code.

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