Mizar32 eLua

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Category: Mizar32 Project
Created: 09 August 2011
Hits: 39065

All Mizar32s can be flashed with a bare-metal embedded Lua interpreter, eLua .

Alcor6L (bare-metal), is a fork of eLua intended to run different language interpreters.

 


 

eLua FAQ

 

 

 

What is eLua?

Lua is a simple, elegant and modern scripting language with powerful features, small enought to be embeddable.
eLua stand for embedded Lua, that is a complete Lua with enhancements and extensions for the embedded world.
To gain The full control of your platform, It offer a set of hardware driver modules:

adc, pio, pwm, spi, tmr, uart, i2c and a TCP/IP networking, without an OS between your programs and your hardware, which only a bare-metal application can give you.

eLua rapidly translate your ideas into reality by tapping into the power of Lua right on your embedded devices.

Is eLua Free Sofware?

eLua is free and open-source software. The MIT licence (the same as Lua's) allows you to use eLua in your commercial and private-code products as well. Nothing to ask, no royalties to pay, just tell you're using it.

Is there an official project website?

Yes, eLua project is hosted at www.eluaproject.net, you can also visit the well done wiki page.


What do I need to install to start using eLua?

With eLua you don’t need to install a specific development environment on the PC side, such as Eclipse, Netbeans, Code Composer Studio, MPLAB X or AVRStudio.
You will only need a serial or ethernet console/terminal emulator. You can also use any text editor, save your programs in SDCard and use them directly in your platforms.

Is Lua fast? It is interpreted or compiled?

Lua is one of the fastest intrpreted scripting languages.
Lua is different from C, C# or Java, it’s more an interactive System, like Python or Perl.

Using an interactive system is a great way to both learn new hardware and to debug.
You can interactively test, look at the results, try something, check out the new results, and so on.

With eLua, will I reduce my coding time?

Yes, with eLua you can make Products with low Time to Market.
You can drastically reduce your programming and maintenance Time, focusing on the actual implementation of your program without to worry about accessing peripherals at low-level reducing overrall project complexity. Prototype and experiment on a Rapid Aplication Develop model.

Who is the language aimed at?

eLua is aimed to both for casual user & average programmers

Both can benefict of an on-chip development environment.
Imagine a Field engineers that can go to their customer site and debug a module on site.
Or a beginner that start to write programs in minutes without a toolchain install.

Embedded developers can use all the potential of a meta-language mechanisms for complex code algorithms and data description. Lua also offers good support for object-oriented programming, functional programming

How can I learn Lua? Is it hard?

Lua is a minimalistic language (yet incredibly powerful!) which is quite easy to learn. Once you understand the basic concepts you'll find yourself writing Lua programs in notime. The main resource is the Lua homepage. In the documentation page you'll find the reference manual and the first version of the excellent "Programming in Lua" book. We recommend purchasing the second version of this book, since it's likely that this is all you'll ever need to learn Lua. Another very good resource is the Lua wiki. If you need more help, check the community page. Lua has a very friendly and active community. Most of all, Lua is FUN to learn and use

Is there any example code I can see?

There is any code example i can see?

What Programmers says about eLua?

Roberto Ierusalimschy, Lua chief architect
“In 1998, Cameron Laird predicted: "the imminent explosion of ubiquitous embedded processing (computers in your car, in your plumbing, and in your kitchen appliances) can only work in favor of Lua." eLua is a great help in spreading Lua to these devices.” 

Tim Michals, Cygentron Inc.“eLua is a great development platform for micro-controllers ” 

Nuccio Raciti, Mizar32 project developer
“eLua makes the complex world of 32-bit processors easy and affordable for all. Thanks for your great work guys. ” 

Dean Hall, embedded systems developer
“eLua takes a rock-solid VM and fits it in a small space. It lets you program microcontrollers with an easy-to-learn, high-level language. I see this programming model and the eLua project itself really gaining momentum.” 

Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, Lua Team member
“Very early on in the development of Lua we started using the question 'But will it work in a microwave oven?' as a half-serious test for including features while avoiding bloat. I'm glad to see that the eLua project promises to deliver Lua to small devices that can make a difference.”