Just chiming in as another Lua fan; I really like it because it's like the Scheme of imperative scripting languages.  And while we're passing around links to papers, I've found the following the be good for additional insight:<p>Lua Performance Tips: (<a href="http://www.lua.org/gems/sample.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.lua.org/gems/sample.pdf</a>)<p>A No-Frills Introduction to Lua 5.1 VM Instructions: (<a href="http://luaforge.net/docman/view.php/83/98/ANoFrillsIntroToLua51VMInstructions.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://luaforge.net/docman/view.php/83/98/ANoFrillsIntroToLu...</a>)