Need programmers' opinions...

[HeirOfNorton]

...on a scripting language.
To wit, I am in the very early stages of writing a program to simplify Dialog-tree writing. Something like ca0mgr's editor, but with more functionality, and more generic. I plan to use XML files as the main save/load format, but with Import/Export scripting for other file formats. That way, for example, a user could import an AGS .dlg file, edit it in the program, and export it as an XML file, as a .dlg, or as plain-text code ready to use with the Scrolling-Dialog module.

My question is this: does anyone have any suggestions on which would be the best scripting language for this purpose? I'm looking for something that can manipulate variables fairly robustly, and can interface with C++ without too much difficulty. I'm equally ignorant of Lua, Ruby, Perl, Python, etc, that none of them would be any more difficult to learn for me than any other, but do you have any opinions also on which would be easier to use for AGS coders (or WME or AGAST; I said it's going to be generic)? Finally, do you know which would be the easiest to embed/use in my program code?

Any opinions/help on this greatly appreciated.

HoN

[RickJ]

I could recommend Python.  I had the pleasure of meeting with Guido van Rossum, the inventor of Python, a couple of years ago.  He characterizes Python as "C minus junk".    It's easy to learn, it's object oriented, and there are many library modules available for it, including several that read/write XML files to and from internal objects.    You can also "compile" it and deliver an exe application.  Oh, and by the way it is also cros paltform compatible. 

http://www.python.org/

[scourge]

i agree on python, it's taken off in recent times like massive, there must be a reason for that 

[scotch]

I am not expert coder, but I have used Lua, GameMonkey, Python, Ruby and Angelscript in the past year for either embedding in c++ apps or writing scripts...

I am not quite sure what you want the scripting language for, you want it to interface with C++, so you are writing the app in C++ and want a script language to embedd in it, instead of planning to write the app in a script language, yes?  Why would you need that in a dialog tree editor?

The easiest script language for AGS users, and perhaps the easiest to interface with C++ would be Angelscript.  It isn't dynamically typed, and the syntax is styled after C, so it isn't quite as great for productivity as something like Python, it is simple to use, though, especially for the application developer.  It can access variables in the host application, call functions, object methods and create/use C++ classes directly, after registering their details with the engine. It supports the same things that AGS script does and the syntax is much the same (save for using the @ symbol instead of * for pointers, which are called handles, in AS)

Python is great too, slightly alien looking to AGS scripters but easy to pick up. I tend to write standalone helper scripts in it rather than embedding it, because you can develop programs so quickly. I think it may be a little overweight for your purposes.