To get the most out of this book

This book will build a Lua executor. Each chapter will focus on one area and add one feature group to the executor. The exercises at the end of the chapter, if provided, are a crucial part to prepare for the next chapter. For the more experienced readers among you, this is why some code might not get implemented optimally in the initial chapters. This will help you stay focused on the topics at hand.

This book assumes that you know C++ and are willing to learn about Lua. If you have no intention of being a Lua programmer, you only need to focus on the related Lua concepts rather than Lua coding.

Because this is not a dedicated book to teach either of the programming languages, when you see the usage of a certain API that you are not familiar with, you can get more information from a Lua or a C++ reference manual. You can enrich your learning journey by frequently bridging your knowledge gaps through online research.

Depending on your style of learning, you can either type all the examples yourself to be more hands-on or download the source code from GitHub, quickly skipping through the chapters and reverting to a specific chapter as needed when you start to implement your own project.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.