Apache Groovy vs. MoonScript vs. PHP vs. ZenScript Comparison Chart

MoonScript is a dynamic scripting language that compiles into Lua. It gives you the power of one of the fastest scripting languages combined with a rich set of features. MoonScript can either be compiled into Lua and run at a later time, or it can be dynamically compiled and run using the moonloader. Because it compiles right into Lua code, it is completely compatible with alternative Lua implementations like LuaJIT, and it is also compatible with all existing Lua code and libraries. The command line tools also let you run MoonScript directly from the command line, like any first-class scripting language. MoonScript provides a clean syntax using significant whitespace that avoids all the keyword noise typically seen in a Lua script. It also adds table comprehensions, implicit return on functions, classes, inheritance, scope management statements import & export, and a convenient object creation statement called with.

ZenScript originated from MineTweaker where a simple programming language is needed to allow users without programming knowledge to be able to execute simple commands by following the tutorials for it. Originally MineTweaker had a simple one-line-at-a-time parsed scripting system, but it quickly became clear that it wasn't flexible enough, so a simple parsed language was created. This parsed language worked quite well but was very inefficient as each value was wrapped into its own object. ZenScript allows mixed typed and typeless behavior. You don't need to define types anywhere, the compile will infer them where possible and exhibit typeless behavior when the type is effectively unknown. In nearly all the cases, the type is perfectly known and execution runs at native Java speed. Since there are types, they can be documented and enforced.