---
product_id: 6524996
title: "Programming in Lua"
price: "$71"
currency: FJD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://fiji.desertcart.com/products/6524996-programming-in-lua
store_origin: FJ
region: Fiji
---

# Efficient embeddable scripting Comprehensive Lua guide Deep C-API insights Programming in Lua

**Price:** $71
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Summary

> 🚀 Elevate your coding game with the definitive Lua bible!

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Programming in Lua
- **How much does it cost?** $71 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [fiji.desertcart.com](https://fiji.desertcart.com/products/6524996-programming-in-lua)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Key Features

- • **Learn by Doing:** Includes open-ended lessons and practical examples that challenge and deepen your understanding.
- • **Compact Yet Mighty:** Dense knowledge packed in a concise format inspired by K&R style for quick, effective learning.
- • **Join the Lua Elite:** Authored by Lua’s creator, ensuring authoritative content trusted by professionals worldwide.
- • **Master Lua from the Ground Up:** Starts with basics and evolves into advanced topics, perfect for all skill levels.
- • **Unlock Lua’s Power with C-API:** Exclusive deep dive into Lua’s clean, efficient C integration for seamless system language embedding.

## Overview

Programming in Lua, authored by Lua’s creator Roberto Ierusalimschy, is the essential, authoritative guide to mastering Lua programming and its powerful C-API. This compact yet comprehensive book blends beginner-friendly tutorials with advanced insights, making it the go-to resource for developers seeking efficient, embeddable scripting solutions. Highly rated and widely recommended, it’s a must-have for anyone serious about Lua.

## Description

Programming in Lua [Ierusalimschy, Roberto] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Programming in Lua

Review: Best on Lua, K&R Style and A Favorite - If you are new to Lua, then you don't have this book. If you are not new to the language, then you already have it! Everyone approaching Lua should start with this essential tool as it is, by far, the most efficient and authoritative way to truly understand Lua and its C-API, which is the key to Lua's ability to integrate with system languages. Written as though K&R were in the room, it has just the right amount of instructive insight and tutorials to bring context, without making it hard to actually find what you need to know. You will wear this book out. In the Third Edition, lessons were added to the end of each chapter. Many of the lessons are actually open-ended questions, such as "Why is the elseif statement more important in Lua, than it might be in other languages?" These lend to a great deal of understanding that I found very helpful. Other lessons and examples highlight how somethings are accomplished in Lua, which might be a specialized feature found in another, more complicated language. Here, I found myself learning about the language, gaining an appreciation of its design, as well as insights into being productive with the it. It's not a huge book, but every section was very dense with knowledge and even after 2 years of playing around with Lua, I found it enjoyable and well worth my time to go through this new edition. Some Editorializing on Lua: Lua is best thought of as an implementation and a language. As a language, it is very small, yet it contains some very compact and powerful semantic constructs that you might not expect. That is, Lua is smaller than Visual Basic, yet it has coroutines, first class functions, closures and some wonderfully done meta-programming features. However, these merits might just be my personal taste. There are other great languages out there, although it's worth noting that, after you remove the section on the C-API, Programming in Lua is roughly the same size as JavaScript The Good Parts. :) Perhaps the feature that deserves the most attention is Lua's implementation, which is focused on its first design goal: an accessible, embeddable scripting language. Lua includes a very clean API written for C, which provides very efficient, controlled and seamless access to and from Lua. It is unique and it is also why, in spite of it being a language less known in web development circles, Mediawiki chose it for their templating system. Finally, Lua is maintained by a small team, in PUC-Rio, a University in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, that knows how to say "no." They keep the garden tended and pull the weeds, and otherwise keep Lua small and beautiful. As a result, programming in Lua and working with its implementation is pleasant. Maybe that's the most informative thing that might be said: When I use Lua, I'm having fun. So... buy the book? :)
Review: The right thing, bringing complete enlightement - The book is just what you need, no matter you program in Lua for a long time or you just need something to start programming in it. It starts with basics and evolves deep into most advanced topics of language. My interest in this book was mostly to read about changes from version 5.1 to 5.2, especially C API part. And i got what i expected. I'd recommend this book to anyone who use or plan to use the Lua language. The overall quality and completeness of the feed of information in book is fine. Roberto Ierusalimschy is one of Lua authors, so it's no wonder. I use Lua in my projects and it's very extensive and delightful experience. Recommended!

## Features

- Used Book in Good Condition

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #2,017,107 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #1,838 in Computer Programming Languages #2,283 in Software Development (Books) #4,975 in Programming Languages (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 133 Reviews |

## Images

![Programming in Lua - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513xKSDEdTL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Best on Lua, K&R Style and A Favorite
*by S***S on January 30, 2013*

If you are new to Lua, then you don't have this book. If you are not new to the language, then you already have it! Everyone approaching Lua should start with this essential tool as it is, by far, the most efficient and authoritative way to truly understand Lua and its C-API, which is the key to Lua's ability to integrate with system languages. Written as though K&R were in the room, it has just the right amount of instructive insight and tutorials to bring context, without making it hard to actually find what you need to know. You will wear this book out. In the Third Edition, lessons were added to the end of each chapter. Many of the lessons are actually open-ended questions, such as "Why is the elseif statement more important in Lua, than it might be in other languages?" These lend to a great deal of understanding that I found very helpful. Other lessons and examples highlight how somethings are accomplished in Lua, which might be a specialized feature found in another, more complicated language. Here, I found myself learning about the language, gaining an appreciation of its design, as well as insights into being productive with the it. It's not a huge book, but every section was very dense with knowledge and even after 2 years of playing around with Lua, I found it enjoyable and well worth my time to go through this new edition. Some Editorializing on Lua: Lua is best thought of as an implementation and a language. As a language, it is very small, yet it contains some very compact and powerful semantic constructs that you might not expect. That is, Lua is smaller than Visual Basic, yet it has coroutines, first class functions, closures and some wonderfully done meta-programming features. However, these merits might just be my personal taste. There are other great languages out there, although it's worth noting that, after you remove the section on the C-API, Programming in Lua is roughly the same size as JavaScript The Good Parts. :) Perhaps the feature that deserves the most attention is Lua's implementation, which is focused on its first design goal: an accessible, embeddable scripting language. Lua includes a very clean API written for C, which provides very efficient, controlled and seamless access to and from Lua. It is unique and it is also why, in spite of it being a language less known in web development circles, Mediawiki chose it for their templating system. Finally, Lua is maintained by a small team, in PUC-Rio, a University in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, that knows how to say "no." They keep the garden tended and pull the weeds, and otherwise keep Lua small and beautiful. As a result, programming in Lua and working with its implementation is pleasant. Maybe that's the most informative thing that might be said: When I use Lua, I'm having fun. So... buy the book? :)

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The right thing, bringing complete enlightement
*by V***K on February 6, 2013*

The book is just what you need, no matter you program in Lua for a long time or you just need something to start programming in it. It starts with basics and evolves deep into most advanced topics of language. My interest in this book was mostly to read about changes from version 5.1 to 5.2, especially C API part. And i got what i expected. I'd recommend this book to anyone who use or plan to use the Lua language. The overall quality and completeness of the feed of information in book is fine. Roberto Ierusalimschy is one of Lua authors, so it's no wonder. I use Lua in my projects and it's very extensive and delightful experience. Recommended!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ indispensable resource
*by J***K on November 7, 2014*

This is a lot better option than trying to learn about Lua using free resources on the Internet. Firstly, it is up-to-date with the latest version of Lua (5.2) at this time. I banged my head against online examples full of deprecated function calls that wouldn't work. Once I had this book, I was no longer wasting my time with out-dated examples. The book is very thorough and I appreciate the attention that went into the sections on writing C applications that invoke Lua code and on writing Lua applications that invoke C libraries. I took away a star because I felt a lot of the "stack" counting concepts could benefit from a simple graphic here or there and they didn't bother to make any; you just have to study the text and the examples until the stack indexing clicks in your head. Overall, a great book for anyone programming in Lua.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Programming in Lua
- Programming in Lua
- Lua 5.3 Reference Manual

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*Store origin: FJ*
*Last updated: 2026-02-23*