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0 pointspygy_16y ago0 comments

You can add Lua to your list.

Here's the full manual including:

    - the language refenrence
    - all standard library functions
    - the C API.

TOC: http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/

Manual: http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html

It's very terse. The "Programming in Lua" book, by one of the authors of the language is far more friendly (an excellent book actually, the first version is available online for free: http://www.lua.org/pil/).

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2 comments · 1 top-level

silentbicycle16y ago· 1 in thread

I use Lua quite a bit (Lua & C on Unix is my dev environment of choice, actually), but I haven't seen a written formal semantics for it, just the reference manual and bytecode guide. I'm thinking more like _The Definition of Standard ML_ - something that's very "math-y".

I was wondering about that today, actually - the designers are changing / simplifying the behavior for non-local environment scoping in Lua 5.2 (http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2010-02/msg00753.html), and have been discussing the implications on the mailing list.

pygy_OP16y ago

I follow that discussion too (and posted some messages). The new proposal is great IMO. Simple yet powerful.

There's no formal semantics, that's true, but I think one wouldn't be very long (although I would be absolutely unable to write it myself). The semantics of the more elaborate constructs of the language (the generic for loop, metamethods) are detailed in the manual as Lua code.

One could argue that code is math, according to the Curry-Howard isomorphism... But I'm no mathematician so I don't know if the point is valid in this context.

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