Recently I’ve (re)discovered Lua (‘LOO-AH’ if you’re English or ‘LOE-AAH’ – if you’re Dutch) and Io.

First – Lua is a neat little language, which can be embedded very well, but can also be used as a standalone language. It has a VM, you can compile your code and it has a very small footprint.

It’s also used more frequently than you would think, of course in games (WoW, SimCity) but also in Adobe Lightroom. LEGO Mindstorms NXT can also use Lua as firmware (pbLua) and will then run the interpreter off of a console.

Second – Io is another neat little language, which can be embedded as well. Also Io has a VM, for which you can compile your code.

As far as I am aware it’s less used than Lua, but perhaps that’ll change?

Anyway, both languages interest me, so from now on I will also write something about Lua & Io here once in a while.