Comment by shevy-java

16 hours ago

Lua has a lot of useless syntax. For instance, the "then". I have been using ruby and python for many years. Lua is living in the old age here.

That's just one example of so many more. I get that lua occupies a useful niche with its focus on embedded systems, but lua is not really a well-designed language in general. JavaScript has a similar problem.

6 comments

shevy-java

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xonre  13 hours ago

For readability, `then` allows splitting with newlines very long conditional expressions, without having to wrap the condition in parentheses:

  if x + y + z > a
    or verylongconditionalhere ()
    or anotherverylongconditionalhere ()
  then
    ...

after `if` and `elseif` the parser simply goes on until it finds `then`.

  • nmz  2 hours ago

    This is something I don't see a lot of people do. I've tended to do

      for long,list,of,variables,here
  in ageneratorhere(bigparameterhere)
  do
  end

    and

      local x do
    -- everything after is just here to define x
  end

    I'm still a little irked it works so well, the only alternative would be for the language to have labeled blocks. but that might be too terse

  • drunken_thor  4 hours ago

    Agreed, it keeps the parser fast as well because it is a lot more clear when the boolean statement ends and the code block begins. You either need parentheses, `then` or brackets around the block to make parsing clearly defined.

Dylan16807  14 hours ago

Python spells "then" as ":"

In Ruby you can choose between "then" and a newline.

This is very pot calling the kettle black.