urn VS tl

There's many different languages that can compile to Lua: - TypeScript is probably the most well-known and most compatible language for Lua. The TypeScriptToLua compiler lets you compile TypeScript code into Lua with a mostly 1:1 conversion. You can use the @jackmacwindows/craftos-types and @jackmacwindows/cc-types NPM packages to add typing declarations for CraftOS APIs and modules. Alternatively, use my template repo for a more ready-to-go setup. - Haxe was built with compilation to Lua in mind, and so you can write code for it and have it run just fine in CC. There's some declarations for it available online, and I also have my own typing set for it (which I should really upload somewhere - DM me if you want it for now). - C# can also compile to Lua, but it's a bit tough to get working right in CC, as it has a huge default library and abuses the global table in a way that CC has trouble with. However, it's possible to use, and I've gotten it working in the past (unfortunately, I don't know how anymore). - Urn is a Lisp dialect that was built by two CC devs and was designed to run in CC. However, I wouldn't recommend it unless you're good with functional programming.

Also, if the microcontroller you're working with is an ESP32 chip, you may be able to use use one of the lisp-to-Lua transpiled languages (urn or fennel) with something like Lua RTOS or NodeMCU. Not entirely sure how well this works in practice, but in theory it should be possible. Of the two, Fennel's probably more likely to behave well when used like this because it's more like a thin translation layer on top of Lua, but Urn's probably going to feel more comfortable to use because it feels like this weird mix of CL and Racket design.

Urn Lisp, A Lisp implementation on top of Lua: https://urn-lang.com

I don't know how much of reloading you need. I did something like that many moons ago. See here: https://github.com/SquidDev/urn/issues/12

Clone Urn: wget run https://gist.githubusercontent.com/SquidDev/e0f82765bfdefd48b0b15a5c06c0603b/raw/clone.lua https://github.com/SquidDev/urn.git (or similar)

it's based off MIR, does it have something to do with https://mlir.llvm.org/ ?

for typed lua, there is another effort https://github.com/teal-language/tl in addition to the mentioned typescript approach: https://github.com/andremm/typedlua

I had the pleasure of working with Lua 5.1 back in the late noughties. For me it's replaced Tcl whenever I want something I can configure above a C library. At the time I used it I found it quite nice but I'll also not forget the hours I wasted tracking down nil table corruptions which could have easily been caught by a type checker.

I had some hope that Luau https://luau-lang.org or Teal https://github.com/teal-language/tl would make things better but with the following example

    function foo(x: number): string

I wonder why the author doesn't use Teal [0] - a typed dialect of lua.

[O] https://github.com/teal-language/tl

Check out Teal

There is already https://github.com/teal-language/tl, which is typed Lua. I think fennel exists to serve a different niche-- personally I use it not for any type features; I just like the syntax better, and others may find certain features like the macro system useful.

There's also some languages made to compile straight to Lua: - MoonScript is the most popular Lua wrapper - it's built to be more Python-like, featuring indentation-based scopes, function calls without parentheses, lambda syntax, list comprehension, and much more. - Yuescript is a modern update to MoonScript that adds more features (I haven't used it myself, so I'm not entirely sure exactly how it differs from MS). - Teal is a version of Lua that adds static typing for better code standards.

Terra and Nelua are both very different in goals than Teal. Teal is literally gradual types integrated into Lua keeping as many of Lua's idioms as possible (to a fault[1]). Terra and Nelua are both very metaprogrammable systems programming languages. Nelua's goals are primarily to soften C's rough edges, comparable to something like Nim.

There's another one you missed in Pallene[2]. But again, it's goal was to optimize the stack sharing involved in using the C API. It also adds types though and maintains Lua idioms as much as possible.

[1]: https://github.com/teal-language/tl/discussions/339

[2]: https://github.com/pallene-lang/pallene