What scripting language should I use

[David Medlock]

Jari-Matti Mäkelä wrote:
> I've decided to create my next big game in D. It will be a rpg using D
> in the lower level stuff and an integrated scripting language for the
> game logic. Now, the only thing I'm not sure about is the scripting
> language. It needs to be object oriented / functional and somewhat
> portable (linux & windows).
> 
> I've searched the dsource site. There is already more or less complete
> support for
>  - python (pyd)
>  - ecmascript (dmdscript, walnut)
>  - minid
>  - lua (bindings lualib, dlua)
>  - squirrel (bindings)
>  - euphoria (freudo)
>  - lisp (dlisp)
> 
> Maybe there are other production ready implementations not listed here?
> 
> It seems the pyd, minid and dmdscript projects are well maintained.
> 
> The best option would be to fully integrate the scripting engine to my
> game. Using it via the C ABI should be ok, but requires a bit extra work.
> 
> Which one should I take. I don't want to end up using vaporware. The
> miniD projects looks interesting. I know dmdscript works, but I think
> those other languages might be better suited for my game.

I am only vaguely familiar with MiniD but I would(and do) choose Lua.

Lua is rock solid,has lots of capabilities (coroutines, closures, good 
C-API),is bytecode compiled and is used in many professional games 
(Farcry, World of Warcraft, NWN).

Check Programming Languages shootout (and the Win32 one) and Lua5 beats 
all the other scripting languages pretty handily:

http://dada.perl.it/shootout/craps.html

It comes just after GCC and just before Bytecode Objective CAML.

-DavidM