We might not be talking about the same lua! Like I kind of hinted, I think it's likely very good for expert users to build tools on.

I'm not an expert user of anything though, or building tools. My professional experience of it has been using ancient versions that are embedded into C or C++ systems to build simple guis and automation within those systems. I don't think it's well suited to this, but this is a common (I believe even it's original?) use case!

I've never used luajit, or any version where I had full control over the runtime at all. I understand people love this language and I'm not saying they're wrong to. But for the things I've needed to use it for it has not been enjoyable at all, particularly 5.1 which is the one I have the most experience with by far.

I've used a lot of different embedded scripting languages with C and C++ and Lua is by far the most efficient and easiest to integrate one. Especially the 5.1 version is excellent and I still use it today. In what notable project have you used Lua?

> I'm not an expert user of anything though

But apparently confident enough to make negative comments about the technology.

Yeah pretty much, sorry. I do this for money and generally more or less enjoy it as far as that goes. But I've always had a miserable time working in lua, more than any other language I've touched professionally.

I might be wrong about the technical reasons why, and I'm genuinely sorry if I've unfairly maligned your baby here. But it has always been unpleasant for me and I think I'm entitled to my confidence about my own experiences in it.

It's not my "baby", just one of many programming languages I'm using or design myself; but is't a great example for how good you can get with a minimal language design. Personally I prefer strictly/statically typed languages.