Lua has a unique set of design goals that prioritize simplicity, portability, and embedding. The Lua core is based on three well-known, proven concepts—associative arrays, first-class functions, and coroutines—all implemented with no artificial restrictions. On top of these components, Lua follows the motto “mechanisms instead of policies,” meaning Lua’s design aims to offer basic mechanisms to allow programmers to implement more complex features.

Reads like a short version of the Programming in Lua book.

source: L

Computer science does not have a culture of retraction, and in any case many of these debates are not about the kinds of mistakes that lead to retractions. The useful debates, the ones we can learn from, are those where both sides are publicly available in writing. These are a valuable instructional resource, and I sometimes assign them as reading to my students. They show an important part of science that often gets swept under the rug—students enjoy seeing that things are not as cut-and-dried as teachers often try to make them sound.

The standard explanation for Moore’s Law is that the law is not really a law at all, but only an empirical, self-fulfilling relationship driven by economic forces. This explanation is too weak, however, to explain why the law has worked for more than 50 years and why exponential growth works not only at the chip level but also at the system and market levels.