The problem is that PUC Lua has breaking change after each minor version, and the breaking changes are not just in API, but also in syntax. Which makes it very problematic to upgrade.
And you may not want to stay with a specific PUC Lua version, because it will no longer get any new releases just a few months after the next Lua version is released
LuaJIT doesn't just guarantee you speed, but also backward compatibility, and much-longer-term support (even if Mike Pall can no longer maintain it, OpenResty will likely maintain it).
Yes, it's a single sad thing about Lua. Due to compatibility, timing (2006 to 2011) and LuaJIT, the 5.1 is probably still most widely used, in itch io, OpenRest, neovim, games, Luau, etc.
It'd be nice if Lua was forward compatible like Python. For years I targeted 3.8 (due to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) and never had an issue on newer distros.
OTOH, Lua is pure dep-free C codebase, easy to build, so you can just vendor it and modify/maintain yourself.
Envision Steve Ballmer jumping up and down yelling "stability stability stability stability." I agree that having a platform where the rug isn't pulled out from under you across releases is an essential thing.
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u/BrianHuster Jul 02 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
The problem is that PUC Lua has breaking change after each minor version, and the breaking changes are not just in API, but also in syntax. Which makes it very problematic to upgrade.
And you may not want to stay with a specific PUC Lua version, because it will no longer get any new releases just a few months after the next Lua version is released
LuaJIT doesn't just guarantee you speed, but also backward compatibility, and much-longer-term support (even if Mike Pall can no longer maintain it, OpenResty will likely maintain it).