1. Each minor version of the language is distinct enough to be incompatible with the previous version. A project embeds one specific version of Lua and never upgrades it.
2. Since it is embedded, it has a pretty small standard library that the embedder can remove or extend.
Both lead to Lua communities being more about individual projects which embed it.
Re:A History of Lua (2001)
by frou_dh on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @06:48AM
(#32409988)
A good example of this is the Max/MSP audiovisual environment, which, amongst other things, has both Lua 5.1 and an ancient JavaScript engine (JaegerMonkey from Firefox 4) embedded in it to this day.
2. Since it is embedded, it has a pretty small standard library that the embedder can remove or extend.
Both lead to Lua communities being more about individual projects which embed it.