> I think Lua was always seen as a bit obscure, and not enough people invested in the language to write useful utilities. It has a solid C foreign function interface, and the compiler is quite fast, which leaves me puzzled about why it never gained traction. I think it's an embedded scripting language in the majority of use cases (e.g. NeoVim, LuaLaTeX, scripting in some game engines).
- Lua's standard library is so weak that it makes most other batteries-not-included languages look like they have large, robust, and helpful standard libraries.
- It's got a bit of the quirkiness and gotcha-ability of JavaScript but without its being a language that's impossible to avoid due to capture of a mega-popular platform, which is what propelled JavaScript to ubiquity despite its being kinda shit and unpleasant to work with.
- Tooling's not as good as many other languages.
(FWIW sometimes I write Lua regardless, because it's the right tool for the job)
- Lua's standard library is so weak that it makes most other batteries-not-included languages look like they have large, robust, and helpful standard libraries.
- It's got a bit of the quirkiness and gotcha-ability of JavaScript but without its being a language that's impossible to avoid due to capture of a mega-popular platform, which is what propelled JavaScript to ubiquity despite its being kinda shit and unpleasant to work with.
- Tooling's not as good as many other languages.
(FWIW sometimes I write Lua regardless, because it's the right tool for the job)