lots of people are commenting on the stack/size issues, but does anyone have any experience with the metaprogramming points he mentions?
from doing bad things to python i know that it's very frustrating when the language suddenly becomes "less dynamic than expected" because something is hardcoded (usually for sensible performance-related reasons - but that doesn't stop it hurting). how serious is this issue with lua (eg the inability to redefine # as described in the article).
The length thing is a known issue and will be fixed in 5.2. You can also fix it pretty easily NOW, if (as is common) you're using a local fork of Lua inside your codebase. Either way, it's not a big deal in practice.
Very very little is hardcoded, and you can override almost anything. Or even change the source if you are embedding it. Most people seem to manage, but there are a few areas which seem odd like the length one.
from doing bad things to python i know that it's very frustrating when the language suddenly becomes "less dynamic than expected" because something is hardcoded (usually for sensible performance-related reasons - but that doesn't stop it hurting). how serious is this issue with lua (eg the inability to redefine # as described in the article).