Lua vs Perl

Overview

Perl

Stacks4.3K

Followers935

Votes575

GitHub Stars2.2K

Forks602

Lua

Stacks2.5K

Followers1.0K

Votes180

GitHub Stars1.5K

Forks452

Lua vs Perl: What are the differences?

Key Differences Between Lua and Perl

Syntax: Lua and Perl have significantly different syntax. Lua is designed to have a simple and minimalistic syntax, making it easy to read and write. On the other hand, Perl has a more complex and flexible syntax, allowing for various programming paradigms and powerful regular expressions.
Type System: Lua has a dynamic and weak type system, meaning variables can hold values of different types and their types can change during runtime. Perl, on the other hand, has a more static and strong type system, requiring explicit type declarations and enforcing strict type checking.
Scoping: Lua has lexical scoping, which means variables have a scope determined by their location in the source code. This allows for better control over variable visibility and avoids name clashes. Perl, however, has dynamic scoping, where variables have a scope determined by the current execution context, making it more challenging to manage variable scope.
Object-oriented Programming: Lua does not have built-in support for object-oriented programming (OOP), but it provides features like tables and metatables that can be used to implement OOP concepts. Perl, on the other hand, has native support for OOP with classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, making it easier to develop large-scale object-oriented applications.
Concurrency: Lua has limited support for concurrency and does not provide built-in facilities for multi-threading. However, it offers lightweight coroutines that can be used to achieve cooperative multitasking. Perl, on the other hand, provides robust support for multi-threading and offers various threading modules and tools for concurrent programming.
Community and Ecosystem: The Lua community is smaller compared to the Perl community, resulting in a smaller ecosystem of libraries and frameworks. Perl, being an older language, has a vast ecosystem with a wide range of modules and tools available, making it easier to find solutions to various programming tasks.

In summary, Lua and Perl differ in their syntax, type systems, scoping rules, support for object-oriented programming, concurrency options, and the size of their respective communities and ecosystems.

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Advice on Perl, Lua

Gamerians

May 21, 2020

Needs adviceon

Lua

Python

Java

I am trying to make Roblox game which requires Lua. I quite don't want to go with Lua just because other tools just might let me do more projects later on. I heard that Python is most similar to Lua, but I am still not sure which tool to use. Java, I think it will help me with many stuff later on for websites, projects, and more!

470k views470k

Comments

Rubin

Software Cloud Developer at RUBIN THOMAS

Oct 8, 2020

Review

As a developer myself, I would recommend you not to restrict yourself to JAVA, PHP or any other language. New Tools/languages keep coming every day. If you do plan to move to freelancing. PHP has a lot of options in the freelance space and a lot of competition too.

Learning PHP is as simple as learning any other language. It depends merely on your interest.

Personally if you can code, you should not restrict yourself. I have had to code in many languages, PHP, Perl, shell script, Python, Java, Javascript, Ruby etc... I would keep your developing skills and logic, algorithms etc.. and increase your knowledge and experience in the different languages.

I agree with you JAVA is a lot more time consuming. But it also has its enterprise level scope.

At the same time learning a new language should not be a barrier for you to stop exploring what's out there and keeping your skills up to date. Learning new technologies should be your primary focus and getting project out of your stack helps you build a good reputation.

There are many options for you to pursue. Having an open mindset will help you move forward. If you look to learn now, you are setting yourself up for a brighter future.

684k views684k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Perl	Lua
Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including system administration, web development, network programming, GUI development, and more.	Lua combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, runs by interpreting bytecode for a register-based virtual machine, and has automatic memory management with incremental garbage collection, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 2.2K	GitHub Stars 1.5K
GitHub Forks 602	GitHub Forks 452
Stacks 4.3K	Stacks 2.5K
Followers 935	Followers 1.0K
Votes 575	Votes 180
Pros & Cons
Pros 72 Lots of libraries 66 Open source 61 Text processing 54 Powerful 49 Unix-style Cons 4 Messy $/@/% syntax 3 No exception handling 2 Bad OO support 2 No OS threads 2 "1;"	Pros 41 Fast learning curve 26 Very easy to embed in C programs 26 Efficient memory usage 20 Open source 19 Good for game scripting Cons 4 Nooby 2 Not widespread 1 D 0 Python

What are some alternatives to Perl, Lua?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Related Comparisons

Lua vs Perl: What are the differences?

Key Differences Between Lua and Perl

Syntax: Lua and Perl have significantly different syntax. Lua is designed to have a simple and minimalistic syntax, making it easy to read and write. On the other hand, Perl has a more complex and flexible syntax, allowing for various programming paradigms and powerful regular expressions.
Type System: Lua has a dynamic and weak type system, meaning variables can hold values of different types and their types can change during runtime. Perl, on the other hand, has a more static and strong type system, requiring explicit type declarations and enforcing strict type checking.
Scoping: Lua has lexical scoping, which means variables have a scope determined by their location in the source code. This allows for better control over variable visibility and avoids name clashes. Perl, however, has dynamic scoping, where variables have a scope determined by the current execution context, making it more challenging to manage variable scope.
Object-oriented Programming: Lua does not have built-in support for object-oriented programming (OOP), but it provides features like tables and metatables that can be used to implement OOP concepts. Perl, on the other hand, has native support for OOP with classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, making it easier to develop large-scale object-oriented applications.
Concurrency: Lua has limited support for concurrency and does not provide built-in facilities for multi-threading. However, it offers lightweight coroutines that can be used to achieve cooperative multitasking. Perl, on the other hand, provides robust support for multi-threading and offers various threading modules and tools for concurrent programming.
Community and Ecosystem: The Lua community is smaller compared to the Perl community, resulting in a smaller ecosystem of libraries and frameworks. Perl, being an older language, has a vast ecosystem with a wide range of modules and tools available, making it easier to find solutions to various programming tasks.

Lua vs Perl

Overview

Lua vs Perl: What are the differences?

Key Differences Between Lua and Perl

Share your Stack

Advice on Perl, Lua

Detailed Comparison

What are some alternatives to Perl, Lua?

JavaScript

Python

PHP

Ruby

Java

Golang

HTML5

C#

Scala

Elixir

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Lua vs Perl

Overview

Lua vs Perl: What are the differences?

Key Differences Between Lua and Perl

Share your Stack

Advice on Perl, Lua

Detailed Comparison

What are some alternatives to Perl, Lua?

JavaScript

Python

PHP

Ruby

Java

Golang

HTML5

C#

Scala

Elixir

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Flyway vs Liquibase