I'm at a stage of working at my C++ game that I need to implement a script language to allow the players to perform tasks inside the game's logic. I'm a sole programmer and thus it's entirely impossible to write a language myself given all the work that needs to be done; even I wouldn't do that once better to handle this task to people more competent than I am in this field. I have been studying around and reading many texts about the subject, but still have some questions given the private background and needs of my project.
I have come across two languages that interested me for this purpose: Lua and Python, I think the mainstream of nowadays on this context. I have a bit of experience in Python, but never tried before to apply it to a bigger project as a scripting language. Accordingly to that I had already read and saw, both are very good languages. Python appears to be more sophisticated and, Lua, lighter (I don't have experience to state this, I'm just mirroring my readings).
I still don't know what to choose because I don't want to regret it in the future. In my given context, I need a scripting language capable of giving the player a high level of plasticity, that is, I need the player to be able to perform almost any kind of action, the more the better, and actions in the field of calculations as a whole. In my case versatility is even more important than speed. Also important is the ability for a novice to learn the language, for some players may come out of a lay background.
The player will be dealing with high complex themes (it's an educational game) and so this is very important to the scripting language to be able to import third-party libraries that work with complex mathematical a physical problems, for instance. As an example, I want the player to feel completely free to solve a question the way he or she wants to solve it and not to be caged by some kind of limit just because the scripting language can't handle a kind of problem another one could. Options is the the key I seek for: multithreading, external libraries, complex math, total integration with C++, portability etc.
So, I would like to hear recommendations for my case. It's no problem to be a language outside Python or Lua. What language should I go for my scripting problem?
