Nitpick: It's 'Lua', not 'LUA'. (It's Portuguese for "moon", and its predecessor was called 'Sol'.)<p>While I too prefer C+Lua, Schemes that compiler to C are another option. Chicken Scheme (<a href="http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/</a>) is quite good. Gambit (<a href="http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/" rel="nofollow">http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/</a>) is also popular, though I have less experience with it.