<p>As already discussed in "<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/250151/lua-as-a-general-purpose-scripting-language">Lua as a general-purpose scripting language?</a>" Lua currently probably isn't the best scripting language for the desktop environment.</p>

<p>But what do you think about the future? Will Lua get so popular that there will soon be enough libraries to be able to use it like Python, Ruby or something similar?</p>

<p>Or will it simply stay in it's WoW niche and that's it?</p>

I really like it as an embedded language. It's small, very easy to use and embed and mostly does what I need right out of the box. It's also similar enough to most languages that it has never really been an issue for me. I also like how easy it is to redefine and add base functions and keywords to the language to suit whatever needs my application has.
I have used it in the WoW area but I've also found it useful as a generic scripting language for a number of different applications I've worked on, including as a type of database trigger. I like Ruby and Python and other more full-featured scripting languages but they're not nearly as convenient for embedding in small applications to give users more options for customizing their environments.