How Brazilian trade barriers accidentally created Lua, now embedded in WoW and Redis

thisguyknowsai · x · 2026-09-02

In 1993, three researchers at the Tecgraf lab in Rio de Janeiro developed Lua to meet engineering tool needs amidst Brazil's 'market reserve' trade policy. Originally a configuration tool, it evolved into a general scripting language. Thirty-three years later, Lua is embedded in World of Warcraft, Roblox, Adobe Lightroom, Neovim, Wireshark, and Redis.

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