This is Lua 4.1 (alpha).
See HISTORY for a summary of changes since the last version.

* What is Lua?
  ------------
  Lua is a powerful, light-weight programming language designed for extending
  applications. Lua is also frequently used as a general-purpose, stand-alone
  language. Lua is free software.

  Lua combines simple procedural syntax (similar to Pascal) with powerful
  data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible
  semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, interpreted from bytecodes, and has
  automatic memory management, making it ideal for configuration, scripting,
  and rapid prototyping.

  Lua is a language engine that you can embed into your application.
  This means that, besides syntax and semantics, Lua has an API that
  allows the application to exchange data with Lua programs and also to
  extend Lua with C functions. In this sense, Lua can be regarded as a
  language framework for building domain-specific languages.

  Lua is implemented as a small library of C functions, written in ANSI C,
  and compiles unmodified in all known platforms. The implementation goals
  are simplicity, efficiency, portability, and low embedding cost.
  The result is a fast language engine with small footprint, making it
  ideal in embedded systems too.

  Lua was awarded the first prize (technological category) in the
  Second Compaq Award for Research and Development in Computer Science in 1997.
  This award was a joint venture of Compaq Computer in Brazil, the Brazilian
  Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

  Lua has been used in many different projects around the world.
  For a short list, see http://www.lua.org/uses.html .

* Availability
  ------------
  Lua is freely available for both academic and commercial purposes and
  can be downloaded from the sites below. See COPYRIGHT for details.

    Home page:  http://www.lua.org/
    In Brazil:  ftp://ftp.lua.org/
    In Brazil:  ftp://ftp.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/pub/lua/
    In Canada:  ftp://csg.uwaterloo.ca/pub/lhf/lua/
    In the US:  ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/languages/lua/
    In Germany: ftp://ftp.uni-trier.de/pub/languages/lua/
    In Germany: ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/lua/
    In Greece:  ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/lang/lua/
    In Japan:   ftp://ftp.u-aizu.ac.jp/pub/lang/lua/
    In Denmark: ftp://ftp.ucore.com/lua/dist/
    In Russia:  ftp://ftp.chg.ru/pub/lang/lua/

* Installation
  ------------
  See INSTALL.

* Contacting the authors
  ----------------------
  Lua was designed and implemented by Waldemar Celes, Roberto Ierusalimschy
  and Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo.
  They can be contacted by email at lua@tecgraf.puc-rio.br. 

  Send your comments, questions, and bug reports to lua@tecgraf.puc-rio.br.
  For reporting bugs, try also the mailing list: lua-l@tecgraf.puc-rio.br.
  For more information about this list, including instructions on how to
  subscribe and access the archives, see http://www.lua.org/lua-l.html .

  Lua is developed at TeCGraf, the Computer Graphics Technology Group
  of PUC-Rio (the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil). 
  TeCGraf is a laboratory of the Department of Computer Science.
  Dozens of industrial products developed by TeCGraf use Lua.

(end of README)
