The stack-based API is the trick that allows Lua to have much saner memory management than the alternatives. Unlike Python, C code using the Lua API does not ne

The stack-based API is the trick that allows Lua to have much saner memory management than the alternatives. Unlike Python, C code using the Lua API does not need to manually keep track of reference counts. Unlike Ruby, Lua's garbage collector is accurate and can be coded in pure and portable C. I agree with you that needing to keep track of the stack size is a pain though. I also wish it would just grow on demand as needed. That said, when you are doing things "by hand" the default stack limit of 10 slots per function call frame is often enough. It could be worse :)