编程与软件工程andregarzia.com
Lua：一门被误解的语言（2021）
Lua, a Misunderstood Language (2021)
2021 — 2025，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
作者为 Lua 辩护，认为它常被误解：1 起始索引、无内建面向对象等“怪异”设计其实是刻意取舍。Lua 是一门极小、可嵌入的脚本语言，源码仅约 70 个 C 文件，非常适合作为领域工具的扩展脚本层。文章多次登上 HN 首页，每次都引发关于 0/1 索引的热议。
为什么经久不衰：它澄清了人们对 Lua 的常见偏见，并展示了“小而可嵌入”的语言设计哲学，对今天思考语言取舍和嵌入式脚本方案仍有启发。
HN 评论精选
作者认为索引之争无关紧要，Lua 真正的价值在于源码极小且易于维护
作者现身致谢，并吐槽每次文章被转发，讨论都会跑偏到 0 起始索引之争。他的观点是“这根本不重要”——用你所处语言的既有范式就好，切换成本不比换语言更大；如果 JS 当初用 1 起始索引，这批人多半会反过来夸 1 起始索引的好处。他还补充：Lua 源码只有约 70 个纯 C 文件，任何 C99 编译器都能编译，这种简洁与灵活性值得珍惜。
soapdog查看英文原文
Author here, thanks for linking my article. It is a bit of a curse that every time this article ends up anywhere, the discussion quickly devolves onto the merits of 0-based indexing. I have a very strong opinion on this which is that "it doesn't matter". You use whatever paradigm is real in the language you're working. The context switch is not larger than the context switch between languages anyway. Lua is not the single 1-based indexing language out there, it used to be much more prevalent. I bet if JS had used 1-based indexing, half the people on this comment threads would just be praising the benefits of 1-based indexing. Sorry for the rant, but the reason I wrote that article in the first place is because I of such threads. One thing I agree with many people here is that my baby example is not the best example. It is not wrong, but it is phrased in a confusing way. I'm tempted to edit the article and fix it or replace the example with something better. After all, the example is not important, it was just an example. One aspect that many people don't realise, one that I couldn't really dive into in the article, is how simple and small the Lua source-code actually is. IIRC it is about 70 files of plain old C that can be compiled by any C99 compiler. That is very refreshing. The amount of power and flexibility you have with Lua when paired with the simplicity and maintainability of the Lua source-code itself is something we should all cherish and praise. Lua is small and nimble, it is small enough that you can vendor all of it in your project if you so want. Anyway, I like 1-based indexing, they make my loops prettier. And yes, it was just a joke, I'm using iterators like everyone else and indexing hardly matter.
Lua 极适合做嵌入式脚本层，但默认全局变量是最大隐患
日常大量使用 Lua 的开发者表示，文章说它是“给领域工具加脚本能力的极简工具箱”完全正确，这正是 Lua 的闪光点。他最喜欢用表和闭包按需搭建 OOP，非常自由；但独自开发才能自定约定，大团队这么做会很危险。他惊讶作者没提他最大的抱怨：变量默认全局且未声明即用，拼错变量名会静默初始化为 nil，往往导致隐蔽的错误行为而非报错。
intrepidhero查看英文原文
I use Lua a fair bit in my day job. The comment about it being a minimalist toolkit that allows you add scripting on top of domain specific tools is spot on. That is exactly the use case that Lua shines in. My favorite feature is the way that tables and closures allow you build up just as much of OOP as you need for the application. It feels very empowering. I'm working mostly solo, so I've been able to establish my own conventions and stick to them. Doing this as a large team would be fraught with peril and require strict standard practices to maintain an intelligible code base. I was surprised the author didn't mention my #1 complaint, variables default to global scope AND initialized. If you misspell a variable name Lua will happily initialize it to nil and run with it. This almost always results in subtle incorrect behavior instead of an error.
Lua 的核心优势是小而易学，特别适合非程序员使用
“Lua 小到新手也能理解其内部实现并装进脑子”——这是 Lua 最好的特性。会编程的人 15 分钟就能学会 90% 的 Lua（元表和 C 接口稍慢）。对一门面向非程序员的语言来说，这至关重要。他还列举了 Hammerspoon、OpenResty、Wireshark 等由 Lua 驱动的工具。
diego_moita查看英文原文
> Lua is small enough that newbie developers can understand its internals well and keep it in their mind. This is, by far, Lua's best "feature". If you know programming you can learn 90% of Lua in 15 minutes (metatables and the C stack interface takes more time). For a language meant to be used by non-programmers this is more than precious, it is essential. Edit: my favourite Lua-enabled tools: 1) Hammerspoon, an automation tool for OS-X (like Windows' AutoHotkey) https://www.hammerspoon.org/ 2) Openresty, Nginx turbo-charged in Lua: https://openresty.org/en/ 3) Wireshark, a powerful network traffic analyzer: https://www.wireshark.org/ Many others at: https://github.com/LewisJEllis/awesome-lua PS: on Windows I highly recommend the ZeroBrane Studio IDE. It is really fantastic.
从嵌入式开发实战看，Lua 极小、极快、极易移植
曾在嵌入式设备上开发 LuaJIT 的人分享经验：Lua 为小体积、可移植、高可嵌入性而设计，解释器易理解、易从系统侧集成，整个运行时几乎不占资源。作为嵌入式语言它跑得飞快——只有约 10 个操作码，而当时的 Python 有 100 多个。他们把 Android 版 LuaJIT 移植到 Windows Phone 7 只花了一天。
virtue3查看英文原文
As someone that worked on LuaJIT for embeded devices (IE phones), I have some strong opinions / context. Lua is designed to be small and portable and highly embeddable. It's not the greatest language in the world, but understanding it's interpreter and how to use it from your system side is pretty easy as these things go. It's really REALLY well suited to be embedded into whatever system you need it in. The whole runtime is like nothing. And it runs damn fast for an embedded language, there's like 10 opcodes or something? compared to pythons 100+ (at the time we did the comparison like 10 years ago). Further context, I think we ported our android luaJIT to windows phone 7 in like, a day? It was super trivial.
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