# What is Lua? ## What is Lua? ![Source: Alexandre Nakonechnyj (Grafik-Design) und Lua-Team (PostScript-Code) / Public domain](/files/-M3xdX2zw1qa4Oe98RHr) Lua is a powerful, efficient, lightweight, embeddable scripting language. It supports procedural programming, object-oriented programming, functional programming, data-driven programming, and data description. Lua combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, runs by interpreting bytecode with a register-based virtual machine, and has automatic memory management with incremental garbage collection, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping. ## Where does Lua come from? ![Source: Governo do Brasil / Public domain](/files/-M3xd4V1AuPWMde5BbRA) Lua is designed, implemented, and maintained by a team at PUC-Rio, the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. ![Source: Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro](/files/-M4055C7oX11Sr4yNFCD) It was designed by Roberto Lerusalimschy, Waldemar Celes and Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo. ## What does Lua mean? ![Source: Gregory H. Revera / CC BY-SA](/files/-M3xcJ6Pchqd9oHzfe08) "Lua" (pronounced LOO-ah) means "Moon" in Portuguese. ## --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://www.computerscience.io/lua-language/what-is-lua.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.