I'll have to look up the specific direct references I saw that the Lua authors made to NewtonScript which prompted this: though note that the sole reference to Self in Programming in Lua is made in the same breath as NewtonScript. At any rate, I very strongly disagree with you about the 18n. Let's say you're making a video game. Let's call it, oh, I dunno, how about "World of Warcraft". You've decided to craft much of the level design in Lua so you don't have to write it in C++. Now you want to port it to the Mongolian market, complete with Mongolian storyline, instructions, character dialogue, you name it. All this stuff was in Lua strings in English. If you had a decent 18N system in your scripting language you'd just type Mongolian in those strings instead. This is a real problem.

> I disagree with you about whether metatables are annoying, but it's a matter of taste.

I didn't say metatables are annoying in and of themselves. I said they're annoying as a hacked-together substitute for a true proto OO.

Lua has many good things. But 18N and a usable OO ain't among them.