Lua Overview - Lua (programming language)

What are the features of Lua?

Lua is an extensible and light-weight programming language written in C. It was started as an in-house project in 1993 by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, and Waldemar Celes.

It was basically designed so that it can be integrated with the code written in C and other conventional languages and this integration brought many benefits. It has many benefits over C such as good distance from the hardware, dynamic structures, no redundancies, ease of testing and debugging. For this, Lua provides a safe environment, automatic memory management, good facilities to handle strings and other kinds of data with dynamic size.

Features

Lua offers a set of unique features which makes it unique from other languages. These include

• Extensible
• Simple
• Efficient
• Portable
• Free and open

Example Code

print("Hello World!")

How Lua is implemented?

Lua consists of two parts − Lua interpreter part and the functioning software system. Functioning software system is a real computer application which interprets programs written in Lua programming language. As Lua interpreter is written in ANSI C, it is highly portable and can run on a huge spectrum of devices from high-end network servers to small devices.

Both Lua's language and its interpreter are established, small and fast. It has advanced from other programming languages and top software standards. As it is small in size, it is possible to run it on small devices with less memory.

Learning Lua

Most important point to remember while learning Lua is to concentrate on the concepts. Main aspect of learning any programming language is to gain expertise in programming i.e; to become more effective in designing and implementing new systems and maintaining old ones.

Advantages of Lua

• Game Programming
• Scripting in Standalone Applications
• Scripting in Web
• Extensions and add-ons for databases like MySQL Proxy and MySQL WorkBench
• Security systems like Intrusion Detection System.