[jordandanford]

I've always gotten the impression that Lua has a somewhat anemic standard library and a somewhat limited set of abstractions, in contrast to the things that draw me to Python – is this still accurate? Python, Ruby, etc. have a wide range of built-in functionality, which allows them to stand on their own, whereas Lua seems to be intended for use with C programs and libraries, keeping it in the game/scripting world. Are these assumptions still accurate? (Also, indexing from one is just frustrating when almost everything else is zero-based!)

[martijn_himself]

That seems definitely accurate. From my limited experience it certainly seems Lua has the more minimalistic approach, although that must have been a conscious decision on the part of the authors. I like how built-in functions can be 'overriden' (more like replaced) to be made more restrictive to create a sandboxed environment. I agree I can't think of any good reason for the one-based indexing, it seems to be a bit of a gimmick :)