Why I like Lua

[Rici Lake <lua@...>]

Someone asked this question on irc://irc.freenode.net/#lua the other 
day and I didn't get around to providing my answer. So here it is.

There are a lot of technical things about Lua which I really 
appreciate, starting with the cleanness of the implementation and the 
commitment of the authors to provide good documentation. (Documentation 
quality, in my opinion, is the key to code reuse, regardless of 
programming model.)

But there is one thing which has always impressed me about Lua above 
all else: the friendliness and helpfulness of the Lua community.

A friend of mine characterises open source mailing list discussions as 
following the rough model: "Yes, it is". "No, it isn't." "You're an 
idiot." "Well, you're a jerk." (Actually, he doesn't use the word 
'jerk' but it was the closest translation I felt like typing.)

The Lua mailing list, over the years in which I have been a subscriber, 
has been delightfully free of this sort of exchange, which is generally 
boring and in any event readily available in other forums. And it is 
probably this, more than anything, that keeps me here.

Rici