The main strength of Python IMO is that it is very quick and easy to write code in. It’s been built to be very friendly to add libraries to, and has a good community behind it. It’s the perfect language for writing simple scripts in – I’ve got a Python script to automatically generate palettes for the GIMP, for example. Because of this, Python is my main contender as the language for tool development and various other in-house stuff.

For game development, I’m mainly interested in Python for that quick-to-write-code ability. Speed isn’t really as much of an issue, as I can rewrite any speed sensitive stuff in C. That would be the case using any scripting language.

As for the fixed formatting style, it was a pain when I was first learning, but the default Python style was only very slightly different from my preferred C programming style anyway. It isn’t that hard to get used to. It has the big benefit that all Python code is formatted the same, which makes reading other people’s code a lot easier.

I’m not entirely sure what your third point is, as I know only the very basic amount of Lua, but I’m pretty sure Python is self-contained and machine independent.

All that said (well, written), I’m planning on trialling Lua very shortly. The “feel” I get from Python is that it will work very well as a main programming language with libraries written in C, but after some thinking about my system design I’m leaning towards going with a C base with a scripting language for extensions. From what I know, Lua excels for that role. I also like minimilism from a sort of aesthetic principle (plus there’s less that can go wrong!), so I’d like to see how Lua goes as an embedded language.

So fear not – I’m planning on trialling both. It’s the only way I could get a proper feel on what is best for my own personal style.

1 – It’s dead slow, and it’s bloated:
http://gmarceau.qc.ca/blog/uploaded_images/size-vs-speed-vs-depandability.png
Here’s a graph of a huge number of languages. ‘Spiders’ represent a set of tests, the center of the spider is it’s average performance/code size. Points on the left are fast, on the right are slow, at the top are code-bloated, at the bottom are small & elegant. You’ll find python as the bottom right hand corner of the table (check it’s graph). Now look at Lua, it’s as fast(er) than Psyco, which is Python-JIT. Look at LuaJIT, it’s as fast or faster than C#. Look at the code size of both, this + speed should be more than enough reasons to ditch python.

2 – Really, really, REALLY dumb syntax:
You are _forced_ to use tab-based indentation for defining scope. That’s all you need to know really. A language which FORCES you to indent (and with tabs only!) is just moronic. Yes, indenting is a good idea, but requiring it is just moronic.

3 – Unsafe/inelegant:
Lua has an explicit paradigm for insuring ’safety’. No matter what you do, no matter how _WRONG_, all errors can be explain purely by Lua terms (no machine dependent-crap). IDK if Python has that, but I seriously doubt it (stringing bad design ideas together seem to be their overruling paradigm).

Conclusion:
Python sucks. Bad. Real bad. It’s slow, inelegant, bloated, unsafe and it’s got an un-cool name (icing on the cake). Lua is the complete opposite, and it’s blindingly fast. It’s not funny how fast it is, and it’s JIT version is as fast or faster than C#/Java (and far more elegant).

http://www.lua.org