Suggestion for Far Future: Switch Away from Lua to Parrot

[Luiji]

Based on a previous request by me for commercial ability along with Lua's inability to compile for a quicker startup time without losing cross-platforming, I have come up with a fix for everything that will not sacrifice backwards compatibility (at least not by much).

As supposed to using the Lua scripting engine, we could embed the Parrot virtual machine! The Parrot virtual machine is super quick and supports byte-code. It's only 4 megabytes and does not require any external files (except library dependencies).

The best part about Parrot is all of the programming languages that it supports. You could program in popular programming languages such as C99 and Python or esoteric programming languages like LOLCODE. The main reason I like this VM is that it supports--you guessed it--Lua!

IMPORTANT: I am not completely sure if this will work, as I am still researching embedding Parrot.

[bartbes]

WHY?!
Especially since we only have a lua api, and hell no, we're not going to write another api anytime soon.

[Luiji]

Thats why I said for the FAR FUTURE. This probably won't be implemented for years, if at all.

As for why switch, see my initial post. For the purpose of closed source games.

[kikito]

Before we should decide if LÖVE is to support closed-source games.

I believe this has been discussed, but not decided yet. I for one prefer that it doesn't (while I respect the opinions of those that think otherwise).

[Luiji]

I'm all for free software, but closable source would increase popularity, thus publicity, thus support.

[Robin]

closable source would increase popularity

Why would that be? I've never heard people say “I would give LÖVE a try, if only it gave me the chance to close-source my games.”?

And actually, we are not talking about closed-source games here, this is hidden-source.

[Luiji]

Okay, now will somebody please tell me the difference, because at this point I am starting to doubt I'm right.

[nevon]

Okay, now will somebody please tell me the difference, because at this point I am starting to doubt I'm right.

Hidden source = you can't easily view the code
Closed source = you don't have the legal rights to view, alter or redistribute the source (you may be able to do one or more of them, but to be open source you have to be able to do all of them)

[kikito]

I'm all for free software, but closable source would increase popularity, thus publicity, thus support.

Not from my point of view.

To me, much of LÖVE's attractiveness comes from the fact that I'm able to see how other people do stuff. The other two "selling points" for me are "cross-platforming" and Lua support (even if Lua has its quirks, I prefer it to other scripting languages).

These three things made me choose it over other engines, like gamemaker, for example (by the way, it seems quite suited for your needs - have you looked at it?).

I think my interest would decrease greatly if the source code started being less available in any form. I would probably abandon the project completely if it switched from Lua to something else.

I understand that this is just my personal opinion; I can't speak for the rest of the community. But you shouldn't, neither. What would happen if source was "closable" is, to say the least, uncertain. It could very well backfire.

[Chief]

-snip-