Javascript Modding API

[Darkhog]

I think JavaScript is bad way to go. Not only it is one of the slowest interpreted languages (even with V8), but also code may get very cluttered very fast.

I think we should use more powerful scripting language, such as Lua, which is on-par in terms of possibilities and speed with Java, Python and most of native-compiled languages and has great Java implementation called LuaJ.

 

[Skaldarnar]

I am not very familiar with the modding API, but wouldn't it be possible to support several (scripting) languages?
So, there may be some tasks that can be done via simple JavaScript (why not stick to that as there are many people who probably know JS already) and more advanced mods where the developer(s) can choose their favorite language.
I think supporting extension via Java files that should be taken into consideration aswell as using Lua, Python, ...

 

[Cervator]

The usual argument is that two languages will spread an equivalent amount of effort more widely than a single language - as in, we wouldn't get as far or get as nice addons if we're supporting more than one language. Personally I'm wondering if it would be "okay" to stick with JVM-compatible languages, since that does provide a fair bit of flexibility (JS, Groovy, Jython, JRuby, LuaJ etc)

On JS itself I'm torn. Yeah it is nice and simple, although maybe not as pretty as Groovy (totally not biased! ), and some insist there's a way to set it up that'll solve the speed issue. But somebody needs to do what little (?) work it would take to support it. ironchefpython had some really neat looking dark magic working via JS, but then went low on time.