The use of the programming language Lua is quickly growing, as indicated by the Tiobe Programming Community Index (http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm). From December 2006 to December 2007, it rose from position 46 to position 20. Lua is not new--it was created in 1993. Small and open source, Lua is used as an extension language, but it does come with an interpreter written in C.

This look at Lua does not speculate as to why Lua is growing so rapidly, but, early on, Quigley gives several examples of games, such as World of Warcraft, in which Lua is used. Typically, Lua handles the less computationally intensive parts of a game, while C/C++ handles the graphics engine. Lua is simple and performs well, which enhances its suitability for games. Given the growth of the games industry, it is not surprising that interest in Lua is rapidly growing; it has many other uses, too.

Quigley compares Lua to Python, noting that Lua’s strength is in processing strings and tables. He reviews the basic Lua syntax, and introduces some of Lua’s object-oriented programming (OOP) capabilities. This introduction to Lua is too brief to provide a thorough understanding of the language, but the reference manual can be found online, along with the first edition of the Lua book.

The next section continues the comparison of Lua to Python by writing a simple text game in each. It also compares graphical user interface (GUI) programing in both. The WxGTK GUI library is a separate program. Embedding is outside the scope of the article, but Quigley notes that in addition to C and C++, Lua can be embedded in .NET/Mono and Java. Quigley concludes, “whether you are doing data processing, GUIs or game programming, you will find a use for Lua.”

This article is an enticing overview, and concludes with references for those wishing to learn more. Lua is written in C, and will compile on any platform with an ANSI C compiler.