Feature Creep / Can we replace Lua with another scripting language?

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tomjscott
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Posted: 31st May 2014 00:49 Edited at: 31st May 2014 00:50
The more I write scripts in FPSCR and Lua, the more I despise this little language. I shudder when I find out things like it doesn't have enums, proper classes, structs, or even basic data structures. Instead, it has a crazy table system that is cryptic and makes no sense whatsoever to me, a programmer of 24 years. I have to say that I really hate Lua at this point.



If at all possible, please, please, please change this scripting language to something more like C, C++, or C#. Even JavaScript would be vastly superior to this Lua garbage. I'll even take python over Lua. I'm not a big python fan, but it's way easier to use than Lua.



If you just want an easy to use scripting language that is easy to implement then I would suggest Game Monkey. I used that once in my own game engine and the implementation is very easy and it's very c/c++ like.



http://www.gmscript.com/



But my preference would be C# at this point.

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The Next
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Posted: 31st May 2014 01:10
LUA is the industry standard and is very fast and easy to learn, it is not fully implemented in FPSCR yet which is why it can seem lacking at the moment. It is very powerful and TGC won't remove it as it really is the best option for what they are building.

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tomjscott
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Posted: 31st May 2014 01:15
No, it isn't easy to learn. It is very cryptic and has some strange ways of doing things that are not intuitive. I think there are a few notable apps using Lua, no doubt, but I would say far more are using c, c++, javascript, c#, and python.



I'm learning Lua more right now and it's certainly very interesting, but it is anything but intuitive.



Maybe you could support multiple scripting languages in the future then? Lots of apps do that. Unity support 3 scripting languages (c#, javascript, and boo).

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wizard of id
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Posted: 31st May 2014 07:59
Leadwerks Engine, CryEngine, Infinity Engine, Cafu Engine, and a 100 more internal engines use LUA.



Battlefield series, Need for speed series, Farcry series, Crysis series, all use LUA.However some of them also use c script, but for the targeted audience and a easy to use engine for all ages, lua is the best possible solution.



Completely off topic I do have to ask, are you part of the problem or part of the solution, it seems that you literally complain about every thing, nothing is any good in yours eyes, you keep forgetting this product is still in development, and will be for a long time, if there is 10% of the scriptable commands added then it's a lot.



Sadly, I have seen you fail to take other person's comments into account, your argument is the only one that counts, and you get obsessive, that you are the only one that is correct, the rest of the people, regardless of having used all 3 of TGC's FPSCreator's has no valued input on the product.



Honestly if you are not happy, and think you can do a better job I suggest you code your own engine, wait for the product to be released, and see the full list of LUA commands or MOD the source if it becomes available.I do feel you need to relax a bit, and be able to see another persons or that of TGC's viewpoint and realize, that you are not the only one here.I know this is frustrating some times especially a product in beta, but work with the flow not against it, you are part of a greater community we are suppose to work together to make a product better.



Mods I do apologize for the off topic, however I felt the need to address this issue, as I would like to participate in forum without having to defend my actions, or some one that disagrees with it and gets aggressive about it.
Dralel
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Posted: 31st May 2014 09:03
LUA is good enough I feel, it mainly boils down to how customisable they allow the engine to be.

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tomjscott
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Posted: 31st May 2014 16:24
@wizard of id, my opinion is as valid as any other. I am not suppressing or ignoring any opinions, but just expressing my own. You need to relax a bit and just allow people to express their opinions. Why does it upset you so much that I don't agree with e
wizard of id
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Posted: 31st May 2014 16:55
Tom unfortunately, I have several people that would disagree with you on that matter.That was just a friendly warning although I enjoy a good debate like any one else, there is a fine line, of expressing you own opinion and enforcing your opinion onto others when they differ from yours.



A perfect example is your second reply in this thread, going against a admin of the website, when he replied in good faith, personally it is not about relaxing, it is nipping aggressively forced opinions in the bud. It leads to nothing constructive, and ends in an argument and a lock thread every time which you already been involved with.



Case and point Lua, you thread title is condescending towards the product and the developers.Simply because you don't like and feel some better can be used does mean having an opinion for the sake of having one.There should be reason and logic behind it, not a simple get rid of it.



It is one of the reason why people here and the main TGC forum give you frag for, as your are always right.Yes searching your name on google coupled with TGC provides fair more than just a forum search.



I left the forum twice as a result, of people like you, the last time I got a short leave as a result as it could take the personal forced opinions any more.



I am relaxed, and chilled, my blood just boiled when you took on a mod and a product series I have been supporting for the last 11 odd years.



That said, I seriously doubt even if asked politely, to rather suggest ways to improve industry standard LUA than get "rid" of it you wouldn't, but rather be aggressive towards the above post instead of being constructive.



I have as such apologized to the admin for the previous post, and will do so again for this one, not because only is it off topic, because I respect the mods and admins enough, and it's not my intention to purposely attack or offend you, it's simply because you are making my forum experience just a little bit less enjoyable, and I rather address the issues right now out in the open for every one to see, so that people can be aware, that sharing information and opinions with you may be detrimental to their forum experience.



Tom we have a long path ahead with reloaded, so hopefully we can see eye to eye now and respect each other enough without the need to get aggressive about it.



thanks for your understanding
tomjscott
User Banned
Posted: 31st May 2014 17:03
@wizard of id, I am sorry if you feel the way you do. I honestly believe you misinterpret me as being far more of what you say than what is reality. I am relaxed, calm and simply willing to express my opinions when I have them. I don't think bad of TGC or
smallg
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Posted: 31st May 2014 22:00
i dont feel tomjscott's post was offensive, he did offer some reasons why he doesnt like it and also some alternative ideas... i think from a new coder point of view he's wrong however, using lua is much more like writing a story or something compared to something like C++, which tends to involve lots of symbols and stuff (C++ is certainly a good language if you can use it but it requires much more effort for a non-coder to use)



i definitely can't speak from an experienced programmer point of view, and in this case (doing advanced coding) with lua, you may well be right... however again i would remind you that reloaded is aimed at beginners and less experienced users (certainly right now at least), however if in future they could support multiple languages than this would certainly not be a bad idea (if it's needed of course, who knows how far LUA can go )

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Posted: 31st May 2014 22:19
sorry, ive ignored posting in this thread alday... and i agree with wizard frankly the title spoke it all for me attitude wise imo, and its not the 1st time either that a title has been well less than diplomatic shall i say. having lua over c# or any other C is a good thing imo. having used c# and unity and unity tutorials i found it complex even layed out infront of me... lua is incomplete and so is the engine something you repeatedly fail to notice it would seem. sorry but when the next says somethink i tend to believe/respect whats said...

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Uman
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Posted: 31st May 2014 22:50
For non programmers/coders - any language is just hard work and some more than others I guess. In fact some are probably more suited to one individual than another as we are not all the same.



I have some personal preferences for programming languages I have to work with sometimes not only game engine specific languages. I am no expert but get by with learning what I have to and not being a natural programmer which we all cant be don't enjoy it but get on with it to do what I must when I must. I have no love for it and mostly hate it.



Whatever language is used a product developer of any software and others like users at these forums can do things to help non programmer users. The developers can make it easier or harder especially by how its integrated and if they provide any supporting tools to make it easier to work with it, documentation, examples and "explanations", manuals (rather than scattered forum topics) specific to its use within the product and so on. The more help they provide the more widely it will be used buy more users just as any other feature part of the engine.



I don't know yet a great deal of .lua though I guess its as good as any if you don't know how to script a hello world yet. Should not matter so much to experienced coders/programmers perhaps other than being a personal preference or not.



I can't see TGC dropping it know and any other additional language is not very likely any time soon at least though I may be wrong there.



The chosen language for Reloaded was discussed a while back though and is done and dusted. I don't have any problem with anyone expressing their opinions personally even if it may be thought to be a non starter for 10 and no one else agree with an opinion or vice-versa as long as users do so with some level of reasonable behaviour towards others.



We need to be somewhat tolerant of others and their opinions and get along whilst making whatever opinions we have known if we feel a need to do so.



As an accepted response if one does not agree with a another user and their comments and post content if one is of serious personal disagreement and do not wish to support an original poster and their comments then we have the option to not post at all rather than post potential inflammatory responses (like this one) understanding that can sometimes be difficult to adhere too.



Anyway all is cool and everyone on each side of a fence hopefully will be allowed to express a legitimate opinion and or their comments, concerns and feedback made in an effort to improve the product even if they have a minority opinion.



I have often found myself in this position though if an opinion expressed makes good sense that can be seen by others then usually others can see the benefit and will lend you their support. If not well then some get what they want and some don't and there cant be any other way when often everyone has a different opinion, expectation and preference and so on.



Me and scripting/programming languages by default I hate them all so no mileage either way in it for me



Stay happy everyone.



tomjscott
User Banned
Posted: 31st May 2014 23:01
If I could change the title of the thread then I suppose it should read more like "Can we replace Lua with another scripting language?" I wasn't trying to be mean or offensive. But as you can see from my original post, I was very frustrated with Lua and hence the reason for the "get rid of" title. I've been struggling with it all day today and it just gets more and more frustrating. I suppose some of that is attributed to the thin support in FPSCR at the moment, but a lot of it does have to do with the language itself.



Anyway, I'm not trying to be a basher or dissenter. I just don't like the language and I don't think that's going to change any time soon. I will work with it the best I can for now and see how things improve with more engine support.

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synchromesh
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Posted: 31st May 2014 23:23 Edited at: 31st May 2014 23:28
Quote: "I was very frustrated with Lua and hence the reason for the "get rid of" title. I've been struggling with it all day today and it just gets more and more frustrating."




It wont solve the problem ...Im sure many people get frustrated with C, C++, or C# or JavaScript. like you im not much good at Lua either but i will just have to keep learning .. Its not going to be changed at this stage no matter how much you don't like it so lets make the best of what we have ..



Leadwerks Standard Edition does have C++ though if you really want that language..But its an addon and its just a pity the rest of the package is pretty grim ..
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2014 17:19
Can we please keep tempers to a minimum, everyone is entitled to an opinion, a debate is one thing, please don't let it turn into a arguement.

LUA is very much the industry standard and it's implementation in Reloaded will of course grow. If any user feels it lacks then please don't forget our feature creep board.

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Posted: 2nd Jun 2014 18:29
Tom,

Your frustration with LUA sounds a lot like my frustration with the documentation of a couple of chips I recently started to program for a project I'm working on. I realized that I couldn't change the companies, their documentations, or the chips. But I could change my attitude toward it, and I decided to do just that. Amazingly after that suddenly the confusing and incompleteness became straightforward and complete. It all became easier and made sense. And no longer did I perceive the lack in the documentation I originally did, it seems simple and straightforward to me now. I would never have picked those companies that make those chips, someone else did. But I was able to return to a positive attitude about it, and it all made sense.

The thing is, attitude is everything. It opens up or shuts down the resourcefulness of our brain.

Now it's later in the project and major things have been revealed about one of the chips (it never should have been on the market) that make the project something I have strongly advised abandoning, which they're not gonna do because they don't want to face the reality of the issues. I almost quit, but decided to stay with it for personal-growth reasons. But my negative attitude about it is back, and my attitude is what I have to deal with.

Maybe I needed to review my earlier experience here to remind myself that I can change my experience of the whole thing.

Anyway, good luck with LUA or whatever direction you decide to pursue
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tomjscott
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2014 18:37 Edited at: 2nd Jun 2014 18:38
My attitude really can't be gleaned from my posts. Despite the fact that I don't like Lua and am not happy with it, I'm pioneering ahead full force and scripting the daylights out of this engine. I'm already doing my own classes, weather and time of day, state machines, custom AI entities and more.



I can forge ahead and make the best of it and still despise it. My attitude to forge ahead is very positive. My opinion of Lua hasn't changed. However, that opinion isn't about my attitude, but just my 24+ years of professional programming experience with languages I find far superior.





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Posted: 2nd Jun 2014 18:42 Edited at: 2nd Jun 2014 18:43
Fair enough. Anyway I wasn't judging or anything like that. I hope you didn't feel like I was. I've just said the same thing many times (about other things) and have had a recent experience of transforming it. Maybe our inner experiences of it were different...



Anyhow
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tomjscott
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2014 18:49
Quote: "Fair enough. Anyway I wasn't judging or anything like that. I hope you didn't feel like I was. I've just said the same thing many times (about other things) and have had a recent experience of transforming it. Maybe our inner experiences of it were different...

Anyhow "


Not all all. And I will probably eventually get more comfortable with Lua. I am already starting to. It just hasn't made me any happier with it. I am learning it and am better able to use it, but the more I use it, the more I find the flaws that just make it so frustrating. I'm constantly finding workarounds to implement what are basic concepts. And every time I get stuck trying to do something I do a google search and end up finding out that the language just doesn't support it and lots of posts on how to hack around it or make something equivalent.

But, I press on and am determined to make this little language do my bidding.



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Posted: 2nd Jun 2014 18:56 Edited at: 2nd Jun 2014 19:01
hehehe...



yeah I've had that kind of experience too, and often with industry standards. I eventually learned to put up with Microsoft. Still hate it. When I have a large enough window of time, I'll be leaving it for an FSF Linux. There'll be lots of basic code then to write to keep certain functionalities, as GNU is quite a bit behind in some areas. Eventually one day, I'll screw it all and design my own computer hahaha! (seriously)
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2014 01:14 Edited at: 3rd Jun 2014 01:30
I can see where the frustration is coming from as I have experienced it too and have for now decided to completely avoid the scripting process for now till more reloaded "commands" are added.



I'm just poor at adapting to new programming languages. Especially when it isn't straight forward or visually make sense to me. But since LUA is widely used and there are many resources out there for it so I'll be happy to look into that when I finally decide to dive back into it. My understanding is we will be able to do a LOT more than we could in x9.

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MadLad Designs
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Posted: 5th Jun 2014 12:58
tomjscott wrote: "If I could change the title of the thread then I suppose it should read more like "Can we replace Lua with another scripting language?"

Done.

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