Lua is a popular general purpose scripting language which first appeared in 1983.

Lua’s lightweight nature means it can be adapted, extended and embedded for multiple purposes so you will find it implemented in a range of technologies from providing the scripting language for gaming, through extending Lightroom and MySQL Workbench to providing extensibility for third party applications in portable media players.

Currently up to version 5.2 the base package of Lua can be download from its homesite at Lua.org. However, the real power of Lua is that its functionality can be extended through the implementation of libraries, as in the Creative Zen X-Fi 2 we looked at some time ago, and this together with its procedural syntax and descriptive data constructs makes it a great tool for rapid prototyping, and proof of concept, projects.

You can learn more about LUA at its homepage at Lua.org and see a live, interactive, demo at Lua: Live Demo.