Lua and Python [LWN.net]

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Welcome to LWN.netThe following subscription-only content has been made available to you by an LWN subscriber. Thousands of subscribers depend on LWN for the best news from the Linux and free software communities. If you enjoy this article, please consider accepting the trial offer on the right. Thank you for visiting LWN.net!Free trial subscriptionTry LWN for free for 1 month: no payment or credit card required. Activate your trial subscription now and see why thousands of readers subscribe to LWN.net.By Jake EdgeFebruary 11, 2020From a high-level perspective, Lua and Python are similar languages; both are "scripting" languages that are compiled into bytecode instructions that run on a virtual machine. But the focus of Lua has generally been toward embedding the language into some larger application or system, rather than as an alternative for, say, Python, Perl, or Ruby as a general-purpose language. That is not to say that Lua is not capable of handling any of the tasks those other…