6 ms·

Colony, an experimental JavaScript-to-Lua compiler

31 points by timcameronryan 15y ago

timcameronryan 15y ago
Hey all, I'm posting this to HN to see if there's any interest in a full-fledged JavaScript port to Lua. Colony right now is a proof-of-concept, but there might be a real use case out there for embeddable JavaScript where solutions like V8 would simply be too large. 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/ http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/, a cross-platform mobile SDK that uses Lua) by programming CoffeeScript instead, which was surprisingly fun.
- justincormack 15y ago
  Hmm, you could target iphone wax https://github.com/probablycorey/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.
- leafo 15y ago
  If you like CoffeeScript you should try out http://moonscript.org http://moonscript.org CoffeeScript inspired syntax that compiles right to Lua.
- nieve 15y ago
  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?
ZitchDog 15y ago
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.
friggeri 15y ago
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.
- vorg 15y ago
  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.
- beagle3 15y ago
  Get a Clue: http://cluecc.sourceforge.net/ http://cluecc.sourceforge.net/ Decent timing from LuaJIT1 when it was generating "dirty" Lua bytecode.
fab13n 15y ago
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.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- zhemao 15y ago
  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.
  - finnw 15y ago
    But if they are developers why would they not want to modify their own C code (to add an embeddable JS interpreter?)
    - aaronblohowiak 15y ago
      js interpreters are not as friendly as lua for embedding.
      - zhemao 15y ago
        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.
  - fab13n 15y ago
    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.
meric 15y ago
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.

Hey all, I'm posting this to HN to see if there's any interest in a full-fledged JavaScript port to Lua. Colony right now is a proof-of-concept, but there might be a real use case out there for embeddable JavaScript where solutions like V8 would simply be too large. 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/ http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/, a cross-platform mobile SDK that uses Lua) by programming CoffeeScript instead, which was surprisingly fun.

justincormack 15y ago
Hmm, you could target iphone wax https://github.com/probablycorey/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.
leafo 15y ago
If you like CoffeeScript you should try out http://moonscript.org http://moonscript.org CoffeeScript inspired syntax that compiles right to Lua.
nieve 15y ago
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?

ZitchDog 15y ago

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.

friggeri 15y ago

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.

vorg 15y ago
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.
beagle3 15y ago
Get a Clue: http://cluecc.sourceforge.net/ http://cluecc.sourceforge.net/ Decent timing from LuaJIT1 when it was generating "dirty" Lua bytecode.

fab13n 15y ago

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.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
zhemao 15y ago
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.
- finnw 15y ago
  But if they are developers why would they not want to modify their own C code (to add an embeddable JS interpreter?)
  - aaronblohowiak 15y ago
    js interpreters are not as friendly as lua for embedding.
    - zhemao 15y ago
      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.
- fab13n 15y ago
  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.

meric 15y ago

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.