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by rcarmo 748 days ago
Janet seems to have fallen through the cracks. I went back to fennel for scripting stuff, mostly because I can just go and get a lot more Lua libraries and run it everywhere (even on my iPad with a-Shell) with zero hassle.
1 comments

Do you think that Fennel adds enough value on top of Lua to justify the extra compilation step?

I mean it is valid to use it for the fun of it, just wondering. Lua is already more or less a Scheme clothed in a more conventional syntax. On top of that the fact that Lua already has excellent metaprogramming capabilities kind of negates the typical advantage of using a lisp-style syntax. So what is Fennel bringing to the table?

Compared to Lua, Fennel brings to the table:

- Lisp syntax, so structural reading, navigation, and editing,

- above-average Lisp macro system, so fundamental extensibility,

- pattern matching, so a bit more expressiveness, and

- some compile-time safety checks.

Also, more parenthesis. Which are a great reminder of more civilized times in computing.