I've been studying Lua more in depth lately and I've been turning over a more difficult question in my head:  How can you combine XNA, with it's inherent constrictions due to the XBOX 360, and a scripting language such as Lua?

The problem is that, at runtime, Lua uses JIT compiling of unmanaged C code.  Unmanaged code can not be run on the XBOX 360 alongside XNA.  There is the possibility of using C# scripting; however, the necessary functionality for building the scripts on-the-fly are not included in the version of the .NET Framework running on the XBOX 360.  As described here, it is possible to pre-compile your scripts and load them as an assembly....  But that is not particularly helpful for debugging/development.  Is there a solution to this problem?

I've been tossing the idea around of writing a Lua-like implementation in C# that would not need to be compiled; it would simply be parsed at runtime by an assembly written for such a purpose.  However, there are two main concerns that have leapt out to me so far:

• The obvious, performance issues.  It may be possible to work out a method for this.  I haven't spent the time on this yet, however.
• Functions.  I could use delegates, but I'm not sure yet how to handle the variable number of arguments into a function.

Of course, it may be better just to go with the pre-compiled C# scripts to begin with.  Thoughts?

Cheers!

Devan