[eggy]

I tried translating some of the book "The Handbook of Neuroevolution Through Erlang" into LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang), and Elxir (somebody's done this already I believe).

Robert Virding, a co-creator of Erlang, creator of LFE, also wrote Luerl - Lua implemented in Erlang.

So if syntax is important you have many choices to use the BEAM VM/OTP in a Ruby-like language (Elixr), a Lisp (LFE) or in Lua (Luerl)!

I am now looking at Robert's videos of a game whose logic is written Lua, but it runs an Erlang process for each ship of thousands he spawns in the demo. Pretty cool. There's even Torchcraft - Luerl and Torch ML for learning AI/ML in Starcraft.

I still prefer LFE because I like Lisp syntax, biased as yourself about such things, however, I still think Elixir macros are not as far reaching as LFE's since they are handled after parsing in Elixir vs. LFE [1], although I wouldn't mind being proved incorrect on this.

  [1]  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lisp-flavoured-erlang/ensAkzcEDQQ

[pmarreck]

How far did you get with the "Neuroevolution Through Erlang" book? I happen to own it (there must be like 10 of us!) but haven't gotten around to it yet...

[eggy]

I am more than a third of the way through. I got distracted, and need to pick it up again. I like the writing style, and that if focuses on TWEANNs and practical examples rather than broad ML. I like the BEAM/OTP but Erlang syntax rubs me the wrong way. I've tried Elixir and LFE, and now I might try Luerl. Not enough time in the day...

[OvermindDL1]

For note, luerl is more of a library for erlang/elixir/BEAM and not a full language, as it is basically just lua's interpreter rewritten in erlang with some modifications to make it fit the system a bit better than normal Lua (there is normal Lua available via a Port though).