this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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    [–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    Also, Factorio. :: spoiler

    33€ well spent.

    ::

    [–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

    Some features of the MediaWiki engine run on Lua, too!

    [–] diemartin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    Luanti (formerly Minetest) and LΓ–VE. Oh, and TIC-80

    [–] borax7385@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

    Don't forget the Silverbullet users.

    Balatro, gmod, srb2 modding.

    [–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Lua is great

    People hate on it because they are too psychorigid to switch to lists starting from 1

    [–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 8 points 2 days ago

    Burn the heretics!

    [–] debil@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

    A random Awesome WM user has entered the chat

    [–] Mwa@lemm.ee 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    And LΓΆve 2d developers

    [–] NGC2346@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago
    [–] serpineslair@lemmy.world 73 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    Don't forget Gmod modders!

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    [–] vala@lemmy.world 48 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Lua is a super underrated language. The standard implementation is under 500kb and it can run almost anywhere. Including inside other programs and on embedded systems that dont even have an OS.

    [–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

    It is great for scripting things that do not need to run exceedingly fast, or are not exceptionally complex.

    2D games? UI? Absolutely.

    Even many subsystems of 3D games can be handled decently well. Procedurally populate a map with items, or generate some NPC populations or weapons or items based on mixxing and matching a bunch of preset components, throw some kind of event tracking and event driven system on top of already existing systems to give your world more depth and breadth.

    But by the time you get to... trying to do an entire 3d render pipeline for graphics more complicated than roughly an N64 or PS1, all of your netcode in a conplex and fast paced game, an entire dynamic 3D physics engine with many active objects... try to to that in Lua, you're probably not gonna have a good time.

    At that point, as the Open MW devs have shown... you can technically stilluse Lua to do this, but you've gotta be running your Lua through LuaJIT, that essentially compiles the parts of the Lua code that need that speed into C, and then run it in C.

    At that point, it arguably makes more sense to just... take those parts of the code and just actually, always, run them in C or C++ or Rust or something.

    ... But after saying all that, I do not mean to take away from what you are saying, which is that Lua is extremely flexble and absolutely does have a wealth of legitimate uses cases.

    [–] crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    I don't think luajit compiles lua to C and then compiles the C, that would be pretty silly. JIT compilers directly output machine code.

    And as long as you can do something in a higher level language there's no need to involve manual memory management or tracking ownership (rust)

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    [–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 14 points 2 days ago

    Lua is actually a really decent language to work with, and it's pretty fast too, can compile it to executables, I think it's great

    [–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 13 points 2 days ago

    The comments under this post should be pinned on lua.org. They’re the greatest advertisement for the language

    [–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 58 points 3 days ago

    To me, Lua will always be the WoW plugin language.

    Nginx/openresty/kong. Redis/valkey.

    [–] notthebees@reddthat.com 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    And BeamNG modders

    Also fivem scripting

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    [–] Carrot@lemmy.today 19 points 2 days ago

    The one time I used lua was to make a casino in Minecraft with the ComputerCraft mod like, over a decade ago. I enjoyed it. Even as a young lad I didn't like index from 1, though

    [–] sunglocto@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Does anyone genuinely like the language on its own merits? Lua is an excellent alternative to other interpreted langs like Python or JS.

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    Factorio modders

    [–] De_Narm@lemmy.world 38 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

    Well, and then there's the guy who made Balatro in Lua.

    [–] crony@lemmy.cronyakatsuki.xyz 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)

    Using the love2D framework if not wrong

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    [–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    You forgot computercraft players

    [–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

    My turtles eat worlds!

    [–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 38 points 3 days ago (5 children)

    Dont forget OpenComputers users! Theres gotta be five of us by now.

    [–] Truscape@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

    There are dozens of us. Dozens!

    (I am trying to set up an mail system on my server using modems and am suffering help)

    [–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I was sick and tired of not having full remote storage access after losing logistics pipes, we had refined storage and a computercraft peripheral mod for it so I wrote a server and client for remotely requesting items to be delivered via ender chest using the computer craft ipads and the computercraft internet. You'd type in a search query and it would display the top 10 items in the network containing that query and how many there were, then you'd pick the one you wanted from that list by entering its index, then you'd enter the quantity

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    [–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 3 days ago (3 children)
    [–] F04118F@feddit.nl 4 points 2 days ago

    I'll add DCS World modders, thank you to the heroes who brave Lua and the DCS API to bring us obscure planes and helicopters!

    [–] Interstellar_1@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Literally every game modding community ever:

    [–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

    Except the poor people stuck with C# when modding unity games.

    [–] erytau@programming.dev 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    World of Warcraft plugins and Awesome WM configs. There are some decent 2d game engines that use Lua too, like Love2d!

    [–] Luci@lemmy.ca 28 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    LΓΆve2D gets zero lΓΆve :(

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    [–] some_random_nick@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago

    Factorio mod dev?

    [–] JiminaMann@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago

    Computercraft enjoyers

    [–] eternacht@programming.dev 11 points 2 days ago

    As a former Lightroom plugin developer I feel erased!

    [–] tio_bira@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

    OpenMW modders

    [–] _NetNomad@fedia.io 19 points 3 days ago

    and PICO-8 devs!

    [–] oplkill@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago
    [–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 days ago

    Don’t forget the one statistically to be enjoyers of war crimes.

    Rimworld mod authors.

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