...in long-running loops. I wonder how large the start-up costs are, though? Granted, non-long-running loops are by definition <i>not running for long</i>, so it's ok if they're a bit less efficient, but 2x faster in hotpots is still different from 2x faster overall.<p>FWIW, LuaJIT runs everything 2-4x faster for me, and more so with long-running loops. Lua's semantics are simpler, though, so it's easier to determine which optimizations are applicable when. (The only downsides for LuaJIT are that it's only for i386, and that it uses about a third more space.)