The evolution of Lua, continued [pdf] (lua.org)

Lua is the SQLite of program languages, absolutely blast

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Wish there is newer LuaJIT to leverage the new Lua features, but then maybe those new features are not really that critical.

It is interesting that so many of the largest languages were developed in a couple year time frame in the early-mid 90s. Python, Javascript, Java, Lua, R. All of these were developed 91-95 and make a bulk of development today.

> work has begun on Lua 5.5

A beta version is now available:

https://www.lua.org/work/

The main change from 5.4 seems to be the (optional?) removal of global-by-default, instead requiring declarations for global variables.

My only context in using Lua is my neovim configuration, does any know of any good books or tutorials that make something more advance using only lua? Anything of note to consider/read/watch?

That's it - I'm building my next startup in Lua!

Anybody knows if there's a lua DAP (debugger) server in development by anyone?

Neovim lua has https://github.com/jbyuki/one-small-step-for-vimkind but it doesn't seem there's any DAP server for regular lua.

Here’s my bit of public domain code for iterating through tables in Lua so that the elements are sorted. This routine works like the pairs() function included with Lua:

  -- Like pairs() but sorted
  function sPairs(inTable, sFunc)
    if not sFunc then
      sFunc = function(a, b)
        local ta = type(a)
        local tb = type(b)
        if(ta == tb)
          then return a < b 
        end
        return ta < tb
      end
    end
    local keyList = {}
    local index = 1
    for k,_ in pairs(inTable) do
      table.insert(keyList,k)
    end
    table.sort(keyList, sFunc)
    return function()
      key = keyList[index]
      index = index + 1
      return key, inTable[key]
    end
  end

Example usage of the above function:

  a={z=1,y=2,c=3,w=4}
  for k,v in sPairs(a) do
    print(k,v)
  end

With a sort function:

  a={z=1,y=2,c=3,w=4}
  function revS(a,b)
    return a>b
  end
  for k,v in sPairs(a,revS) do
    print(k,v)
  end

(Yes, this is a lot easier to do in Perl or Python, since those languages unlike Lua have built in list iterators, but it’s possible to do in Lua too)

I was thinking a while back, how nice it would be if lua was the scripting language in the browser instead of javascript. There are some projects to compile lua to wasm and have it run in the browser...

https://pluto-lang.org/web/#env=lua%3A5.4.6&code=if%20_PVERS...

But interoperability with the DOM is the missing key.

Still, if lua was used instead of javascript, I could see myself saying... man, I wonder what browser development would be like if we replaced lua with x.

I don't understand why Python is so popular when there's Lua. It's just so much better. Not as good as Rebol but still much better than Python.

I've been saying it for years: Lua needs its Ruby on Rails moment

Don't leave out Fennel! https://fennel-lang.org/

When comparing speed I use simple tests like a loop printing an incremented line number or reading from stdin and printing to stdout. These simple tests are useful for me because, when combined with pattern matching or regular expressions, simple I/O tasks like these are actually what I use a "memory safe" language for

dino is slightly faster than lua (not luajit)

but spitbol is actually faster than lua, dino and luajit

ngn k is slightly faster than spitbol but lacks built-in pattern matching or RE

FWIW, I do not use a terminal emulator. I only use textmode No graphics layer. No "desktop"

n entire language off by one.

If you're new to Lua, be sure to check out TurboLua:

https://turbo.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Its a very flexible way to do realtime/embedded, performance-critical services (e.g., a game server or API gateway) where Lua's speed and low overhead matter.