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Lua is a small easily learnt programming language that has been available on RISC OS, in the form of RiscLua, since 2002. Only now, though, with the arrival of GCC 4.7.4, has it become possible to implement Lua on RISC OS in anything like its standard form as found on other platforms.

The recently released RiscLua 6.0 attempts to be such an implementation and also to be as compatible as possible with earlier versions.

The big new feature is that it can use dynamic loading. Whereas programs running under previous versions of RiscLua could only extend themselves by loading in Lua libraries, now programs can extend the Lua interpreter itself, as they are being interpreted, with C libraries. This makes RiscLua far more extensible than it was before, when everything had to be linked statically. The difference between Lua modules and C modules is invisible to the user.

Gavin Wraith, the developer of RiscLua, will tell us about the possibilities this opens up and why it is a significant advance for RISC OS.