How safe is use Lua?

[HerlySQR]

I'm not very into Lua yet so I have some doubts about using Lua, I mean, first since there is not values types is too easy call a function and add it illegal values like put a player where must be a unit, second since to declare an object like a variable or function I just put the name and there it is, I can call a "non existing" value or function and the code will compile normally, I know I can compare if the value isn't nil, but it was too tedious and less efficient and in other case, if I miss a charcater the code could compile normally; so what should I do?

 

[Halithor]

You're totally correct with the lack of types in Lua being dangerous. Lua is interpreted, not compiled so there's no checks on most things until you actually run the code.

I would highly recommend looking into using Typescript, which compiles to Lua, for type safety and a way better coding experience. There's a number of people doing thing, myself included, who really enjoy it.

 

[HerlySQR]

Thank you for the suggestion, can you tell me how to start typescript and translate it to Lua?

 

[LazZ]

Warcraft III - TypeScript

cipherxof.github.io

 

[Dr Super Good]

Lua is interpreted, not compiled so there's no checks on most things until you actually run the code.

Lua is compiled into bytecode and it can and will throw syntax errors during that stage. Lua is dynamically typed though (as opposed to JASS which is statically typed) so it cannot throw type related errors until the Lua bytecode is executed.

 

[HerlySQR]

Warcraft III - TypeScript

cipherxof.github.io

Thank you.

 

[HerlySQR]

For a couple months I was working in CoreGames and I noticed that Lua is a very good programming language, even sometimes I'm grateful that don't have classes; just Warcraft 3 implemented it very bad.

 

[Dr Super Good]

just Warcraft 3 implemented it very bad.

In what way? From what I can tell it mostly follows the standard implementation.

 

[HerlySQR]

In what way? From what I can tell it mostly follows the standard implementation.

Don't have the debug library and others base functions, the pairs method is cursed and didn't take advantage of the metamethods or implemented error and warning messages to have a better debugging.