Updated April 19, 2023
Introduction to Lua programming
The Lua is a high level, efficient, multi-paradigm, lightweight, portable, easily embeddable scripting language. Lua is an open source programming language which is built on the top of C Programming language. Lua supports procedural programming, functional programming, object-oriented programming, data-driven programming, and data description. It has value in multiple platforms from the large server systems to small mobile application.
Lua programming language is mainly designed to be easily embedded into other applications. It combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs. Lua programming language is cross runs by interpreting bytecode with a register based virtual machine, the compiled bytecode is written in ANSI C, and it has simple C API which can embed into an application. It also has automatic memory management with incremental garbage collection, which makes it ideal for configuration, rapid prototyping and scripting.
Why do we need Lua programming?
- Lua is fast language – Lua gives the good performance. Lua claim to be “as fast as Lua” which is the aspiration of other scripting languages. The large applications have been written in Lua because of its good performance. Several benchmarks show it as the fastest language and also in the real life to. The LuaJIT, which is independent implementation of Lua using a just-in-time compiler that gives more performance.
- Lua is portable language – Lua is a portable language that have a standard C compiler. It runs on all machines which we ever heard Unix( all its flavor) and Windows, windows CE, on embedded microprocessors (such as Rabbit and ARM, for applications like Lego MindStorms), on mobile devices (running Android, Symbian, iOS, BREW, Windows Phone), on IBM mainframes etc.It is Written in ANSI C ∩ ANSI C++ which avoids dark corners of the standard.
- Lua is embeddable language – Lua is an embedded language which can be embed easily into an application. Lua provide as a libraries written in other languages which makes it easy to extend with Lua. Lua provides simple API which are simple types, low level operation by that it allows strong integration with code written in other languages. Lua Embedded in C/C++, Java, Perl, Ruby, Fortran, C#, Ada, etc.
- Lua is small language – The Lua 5.4.2, that have source code and documentation, takes 1.3M uncompressed and 346K compressed. The source code have less than 20K lines of C code. It provides easy way to remove libraries.
- Lua is simple but powerful language – Lua fundamentally designed to provide meta-mechanisms for implementing features, instead of providing a host of features directly in the language. Its Complete manual is of just 100 pages. It provides the mechanisms instead of the policies.
- Lua is free language – Lua programming language software is free and open-source software, Just need to download it and use it. It is distributed under the MIT license (a very liberal license ). It can be used for any purpose as commercial purposes also which is absolutely free.
How does Lua programming works?
Lua programming provides two-mode Interactive Mode Programming and Default Mode Programming. The Interactive Mode Programming allows to type instruction one after the other and gets instant results. For example, we can print a message using the below statement as –
print(“Hello”)
and once we press enter, we will get an output as Hello.
Next mode, Default Mode Programming allows to group the instructions into a file and execute the file until the script is finished. Example, we can print message using the below statement as in default mode –
msg = ‘Hello’
print(“Message is”, msg)
save file by .lua and once we execute the file, we will get an output as “Message is Hello”.
Advantages and disadvantages of Lua Programming
Here are the following advantages and disadvantages mention below
Advantages
- It is lightweight and has a just – in –time compiler.
- The Lua language is completely written in C language which can be manipulated easily.
- It is a fast language which has quick response time.
- It Has the ability to document everything very easily.
- It is a portable language.
- It is free.
Disadvantages
- The all codes of Lua are not easily available, some of them need to coded manually.
- It has a very small community of users, still relatively unknown next to Perl and Python languages.
- It is rarely used for standalone programming language, usually it is used as embedded scripting languagefor individual programs.
Career in Lua programming
Lua is a small programming language, it used in many application ranging from large application to small application like from the large server systems to small mobile application. It used in many video games development and it is mostly used as scripting language by programmers.
Some of the Lua career options are –
- Junior programmer/ software engineer/ coder/ technologist/ computer user – The career begin as a junior programmer or software engineer and stay during for 3-4 years. The duties can primarily carries with it coding, taking part in code reviews, debugging, and technical documentation.
- Mechanics Designer / Senior Mechanics Designer / PC/Mobile Game Programmer – Mechanics Designer where you need to build, implement like player centric features such as weapon firing, movement, weapon mechanics, traversal etc.
Usage of Lua programming
The Lua programming is used in many application different purpose like Accessibility, Business Logic, Automotive, Education, Command-Line Enhancers, Database Management, Flight Simulators, File Managers, Game Engines, Genealogy, Games, Home Automation, Graphics, Hardware (Embedded), Image Processing, IDEs, Internet, Miscellany, Machine-To-Machine, Malware, Operating Systems & Window Managers, Multimedia, Pattern Recognition, Physical Simulators, Package Managers, Project Management, Rich Text Editors, Plain Text Editors, Robotics, –Inbox, Utilities, Typesetting and all.
Conclusion
The Lua is a high-level, efficient, multi-paradigm, lightweight, portable, easily embeddable scripting language. Which is also an open-source language, easily can be download, install and use it. And above we had discuss its advantages, disadvantages, career, and application also.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to Lua programming. Here we discuss How does Lua programming work along with the Advantages and disadvantages of Lua. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
