Programming in Lua

If you are new to Lua, then you don't have this book. If you are not new to the language, then you already have it! Everyone approaching Lua should start with this essential tool as it is, by far, the most efficient and authoritative way to truly understand Lua and its C-API, which is the key to Lua's ability to integrate with system languages. Written as though K&R were in the room, it has just the right amount of instructive insight and tutorials to bring context, without making it hard to actually find what you need to know. You will wear this book out. In the Third Edition, lessons were added to the end of each chapter. Many of the lessons are actually open-ended questions, such as "Why is the elseif statement more important in Lua, than it might be in other languages?" These lend to a great deal of understanding that I found very helpful. Other lessons and examples highlight how somethings are accomplished in Lua, which might be a specialized feature found in another, more complicated language. Here, I found myself learning about the language, gaining an appreciation of its design, as well as insights into being productive with the it. It's not a huge book, but every section was very dense with knowledge and even after 2 years of playing around with Lua, I found it enjoyable and well worth my time to go through this new edition. Some Editorializing on Lua: Lua is best thought of as an implementation and a language. As a language, it is very small, yet it contains some very compact and powerful semantic constructs that you might not expect. That is, Lua is smaller than Visual Basic, yet it has coroutines, first class functions, closures and some wonderfully done meta-programming features. However, these merits might just be my personal taste. There are other great languages out there, although it's worth noting that, after you remove the section on the C-API, Programming in Lua is roughly the same size as JavaScript The Good Parts. :) Perhaps the feature that deserves the most attention is Lua's implementation, which is focused on its first design goal: an accessible, embeddable scripting language. Lua includes a very clean API written for C, which provides very efficient, controlled and seamless access to and from Lua. It is unique and it is also why, in spite of it being a language less known in web development circles, Mediawiki chose it for their templating system. Finally, Lua is maintained by a small team, in PUC-Rio, a University in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, that knows how to say "no." They keep the garden tended and pull the weeds, and otherwise keep Lua small and beautiful. As a result, programming in Lua and working with its implementation is pleasant. Maybe that's the most informative thing that might be said: When I use Lua, I'm having fun. So... buy the book? :)

The book is just what you need, no matter you program in Lua for a long time or you just need something to start programming in it. It starts with basics and evolves deep into most advanced topics of language. My interest in this book was mostly to read about changes from version 5.1 to 5.2, especially C API part. And i got what i expected. I'd recommend this book to anyone who use or plan to use the Lua language. The overall quality and completeness of the feed of information in book is fine. Roberto Ierusalimschy is one of Lua authors, so it's no wonder. I use Lua in my projects and it's very extensive and delightful experience. Recommended!

This is a lot better option than trying to learn about Lua using free resources on the Internet. Firstly, it is up-to-date with the latest version of Lua (5.2) at this time. I banged my head against online examples full of deprecated function calls that wouldn't work. Once I had this book, I was no longer wasting my time with out-dated examples. The book is very thorough and I appreciate the attention that went into the sections on writing C applications that invoke Lua code and on writing Lua applications that invoke C libraries. I took away a star because I felt a lot of the "stack" counting concepts could benefit from a simple graphic here or there and they didn't bother to make any; you just have to study the text and the examples until the stack indexing clicks in your head. Overall, a great book for anyone programming in Lua.

This book is considered THE primary resource for learning to program in Lua, as long as you are not new to programming in general! The additional material in this new edition makes it even more effective and useful for those with a somewhat limited programming background, although still not a book for complete beginners to programming in general. I would suggest for newcomers to programming wanting to use Lua to get both this book and "Beginning Programming with Lua." In fact, I feel this is a good combo for many, myself included. Be aware that this 3rd edition of PiL, as this book is known in the Lua community, targets Lua 5.2, and the other book recommended targets Lua 5.1. The versions are quite similar but you need to be aware of the differences. This book is careful in pointing out to the reader these differences, as version 5.1 is still widely used.

Il Lua è uno dei più compatti, espressivi, versatili ed efficienti linguaggi di programmazione. Nato per uso embedded (dove eccelle) se la cava molto bene anche per scrivere applicazioni, pur se limitato in questo caso dalla mancanza di un meccanismo standard di distribuzione delle librerie. Se devo scrivere programmi di AI, di analisi ed elaborazione di testi (es. tool per HTML), compilatori o in generale lavori complessi da realizzare in tempi brevi ma che devono girare velocemente, Lua è la mia prima scelta tra i numerosi linguaggi che conosco. Questo libro, insieme introduttivo e approfondito, aiuta a uscire dagli schemi limitanti della tradizionale programmazione OO che si insegna a scuola e mostra, con esempi brevi ma assai significativi, come sfruttare appieno la potenza di un linguaggio dinamico. Scritto da uno degli autori del linguaggio, si legge facilmente ed è un testo fondamentale per la comprensione della programmazione moderna.

Très bon livre pour apprendre le lua, mais cela manque peut-être un peu d'accessibilité pour les personnes n'étant pas habituées à la programmation (quoique c'est dit en quatrième de couverture que ce livre s'adresse plutôt aux personnes ayant un minimum d'expérience). Et il faut avoir un bon anglais pour suivre le livre, sinon, un dictionnaire sera plus que nécessaire.

Lua ist eine sehr elegante Skript-Sprache, die sich hervorragend zum Einbetten in eigene Systeme eignet. Der Kern der Sprache ist einfach, aber durch Mechanismen wie Closures und Coroutinen sehr leistungsfähig. Chef-Architekt Ierusalimschy bietet in diesem Buch einen gut strukturierten und flüssig zu lesenden Einstieg in die Welt von Lua. Anhand von Übungsaufgaben kann das gerade Gelesene sofort ausprobiert werden. Das Buch ist nicht zu dick, da es darauf verzichtet, die vielfältig verfügbaren Zusatz-Module zu behandeln. Es geht um den Sprachkern, und der hat mich positiv überrascht, weil Lua viele Paradigmen (strukturierte Programmierung, Objekt-Orientierung, funktionale Programmierung etc.) mit Hilfe derselben einfachen Konstrukte implementiert. Das einzige, was mich an Lua (nicht an dem Buch !) etwas enttäuscht hat, ist der mangelnde Support für Unicode-Strings. Dies kann mit Zusatz-Libraries zwar nachgerüstet werden, ist aber dann nicht so richtig integriert.

Skill Enhancement.

For a while I was looking for a way to make C/++ applications easier to write. Once I realised that Lua was such a powerful scripting language and all for the low low price of about 200kb and a liberal MIT license I was amazed! The reference manual and Programming in Lua Volume 1 are available on line which is plenty to get you familiar with the basics. Once you've grasped those, YOU NEED THIS BOOK! Its style is the same as PiL#1 which is to say comprehensive and well written. The author explains every bit of the language and makes clear what is essential and what is 'common practice'. He also provides useful tips on alternative (Lua-like) ways of doing things which don't always come naturally to C/++ programmers. The first third deals with the basics of writing Lua scripts. The second third explains some more advanced ways of scripting along with the Lua standard libraries. The last third tends to deal integrating Lua into your own C/++ applications. For this last third, it is probably useful having a copy of the Lua source (also on line) and compiling in your own environment to experiment with some of the C API. Throughout the book there are regular annotations where something relevant has changed since 5.1. The official Lua mailing list is also a very active list that's worth signing up for as well. The author actively participates in the list too.