Re:Go performance from version 1.2 to 1.18
by tgtweak on Friday February 04, 2022 @12:57PM
(#30210207)
compiled LUA interpreter and runtime is pretty slim - but we're glossing over the reality that LUA is a drastically less functional language than golang - much in the way LUA is less functional than C.
I think to each their own - it is possible to have a lua app compile down, including the interpreter, to sub-megabyte size, but a 10k LOC lua app could probably be a 200 LOC golang app with some libraries pulled in.
I shudder thinking about the development cost of building and maintaining a lua codebase but if you had 100 million client devices running your code (say a wifi lightbulb) then it might make sense to save on client device and put that money into development of something very bespoke to optimize it.
Apples and oranges indeed; a Go binary is a fully self-contained, external-runtime-less application. That said, I can picture (in my head, don't expect me to build it) an edge / lambda environment that only takes your codebase and will run / feel like a script moreso than a complete binary.
I'm willing to put money that if you add the libraries + runtime to the lua application, you'd end up with more than 11MB.
Anyway, I'm trying to keep neutral; if your binary size is that important then staying with C may be the way to go. It's a compromise between binary size, language features, 'safety' (e.g. memory management is easier in Go thanks to auto zeroed variables and garbage collection), concurrency (not as much an issue in lambdas), etc.