Language ShowOff Part #1: Lua

Pros:
   * Tiny
   * Crossplatform
   * Easy to embed
   * Fairly easy to extend
   * Has no external dependencies
   * Easy to learn due to simple syntax
   * Has metatables, which allow creating objects, and with that, allow OOP

Contra:
   * The builtin stdlib doesn't allow much more than just basic IO
   * The stackoriented API might be confusing to those unfamiliar with the concept of stackbased APIs
   * Due to the do ... end syntax, closures and co tend to look clumsy:
   
       pcall(function()
           stuff ...
       end)

>>36,40
I prefer Lua's object model (i.e. protos, not classes), especially for scripting. But one thing I dislike in OO is meta-anything and Lua's metatables are so broken and/or not completely documented in 5.1 (unless you want to buy the book.) It's a real turn-off. For OO scripting I'm most fond of Io: http://www.iolanguage.com/

Another thing I've found is braces aren't that important. As long as blocks are delimited consistently and by something other than weird whitespace configurations I am usually fine with it.