embedded-scripting-languages VS rune

Hopefully the linked README provides a general overview (I know I need to write some more documentation!), but Steel is an implementation of the scheme programming language (not entirely compliant yet, but aiming for R5RS and R7RS compliance). It can be used as a standalone language via the interpreter/repl (like Python or Racket), or it can be embedded inside applications, like Lua. There are hundreds (thousands, probably) of embeddable languages, each with their own flavor - see a list compiled here for example https://github.com/dbohdan/embedded-scripting-languages

Use cases are generally for either configuration, scripting, or plugins - so scripting in games, or adding extensions to your text editor without having to use FFI or RPC + serializing a bunch of data. The advantage it has over using dynamic libraries (in general) is it runs in the same process, and can access the internal data structures directly without a lot of ceremony involved. The downside is typically is not as fast as native code unless a JIT is involved.

Javascript is an example of an embedded scripting, where the browser is the host application.

> There is a huge opportunity, IMO, for more players here.

There are quite a few embeddable scripting languages [1]. I think these days it's less common to embed a language mostly because there are good high-level languages that applications can be predominantly written in.

[1] https://github.com/dbohdan/embedded-scripting-languages

I'm not a huge fan of Lua but I think it is at least way more popular and better on every measure than TCL. There are plenty of other better less well-known options too: Rhai, Wren, AngelScript, Starlark (for some use cases), etc. There's a good list here.

or perhaps use one of this list (depending on who's writing the configuration): https://github.com/dbohdan/embedded-scripting-languages

https://github.com/dbohdan/embedded-scripting-languages (coincidentally, from a user whose name I recognize from the Tcl wiki)

A Lisp, a weird dialect of Lisp, is not better than Lua. Why use Rune [0]?!

[0]: https://rune-rs.github.io/

This is what I based my comment on - https://github.com/rune-rs/rune/issues/444

Late start today as well. I really thought today would be the day that I'd have to abandon my goal of no heap allocations. But, luckily I had an arena allocator available that I could fairly easily adapt to store data on the stack. And with some tweaks we have today's solution:

I'd have given you bonus points for using a rust styled scripting language like rune but that's pretty neat still

As note about using rust syntax for scripting: https://rune-rs.github.io/

I know you said you don’t want to embed another language but IMO Rune is worth a consideration here. It can be a pretty thin abstraction over rust by passing native structs to scripts and calling methods on them. The syntax and semantics are very close to rust so it feels natural. https://github.com/rune-rs/rune

The biggest technical difference I'd say is that Rune uses a stack-based machine which makes adding deep C support somewhat obvious while Rhai performs AST walking to execute scripts.