> I mean, 1-based arrays, weird scoping and the pairs/ipairs thing seems far more serious than the lack of a proper conditional operator (how long did Python go before it got a conditional operator?)
No. Not having a real numeric or array type is serious, '1-based arrays' is just a minor quibble about syntactic sugar.
The language seems to ship with an array type and a numeric type. I hear it will soon ship with 2 numeric types instead. If you aren't satisfied with your ability to redefine the numeric type(s) to literally anything by changing 1 line in 1 header file, you can use a userdata that supports "real numeric" operations.
No. Not having a real numeric or array type is serious, '1-based arrays' is just a minor quibble about syntactic sugar.