I saw a post about using Lua and Sparrow a while back and decided to try it.
I was able to get a Scaffold like project running and thought I would share it!
There are a number of important things to know, like the difference between . and : and the lack of macros, but I will probably make a tutorial later. For now, post any questions here.
http://cl.ly/262t2U1e3v3h0I0I0l2E
Also, here are some benefits of Lua from this article:
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/iphone/iphone-wax/
Why use Wax?
Wax is free and open-source. Unlike some other Lua based solutions for mobile development, Wax is an open-source framework that only requires you invest a little bit of time to get working, not money. Don’t like the way Wax works or find a bug in the implementation? The source-code is freely available, and you can always modify it to fit your needs.
You can leverage native APIs. This means tutorials written to teach Objective-C can be easily adapted and written with Lua for Wax. This also means your app will always look and feel native, yet you still have the time-saving benefit of writing your code in Lua, an efficient scripting language.
You get to use Xcode. This means that both simulator and device deployment is a snap and shouldn’t break easily with a future iOS release.
You get to leverage all existing Objective-C libraries. If you have an Objective-C class that you have written before, you can use it in Lua–with no adaptations–you just toss it into Xcode. Same thing goes for libraries like Three20. Just add them per the normal instructions and you have access to them in your Lua code.
You get to leverage Wax Lua modules. Wax has a few built in Lua modules that make asynchronous HTTP requests and JSON creation/parsing incredibly easy and fast (because the modules are written in C).
You don’t have to manage memory. No more memory allocation and the like. Wax handles all of that for you.
Lua types are automatically converted to Objective-C equivalents and vice-versa. This means that when you call a method that needs an NSString and an NSInteger, but you pass a Lua string and a Lua integer, Wax will take care of it for you. This conversion is even powerful enough to handle complex Objective-C features like selectors.
You get to leverage ALL of the above. No need to pick and choose. You get it all!