[c-smile]

Lua syntax is pretty good for DSL (domain specific language) cases / configuration definitions.

For example Premake[1] uses Lua as it is - without custom syntax parser but with set of domain specific functions.

This is pure Lua:

   workspace "MyWorkspace"
      configurations { "Debug", "Release" }
   
   project "MyProject"
      kind "ConsoleApp"
      language "C++"
      files { "**.h", "**.cpp" }
   
   filter { "configurations:Debug" }
      defines { "DEBUG" }
      symbols "On"
   
   filter { "configurations:Release" }
      defines { "NDEBUG" }
      optimize "On"

In that sense Premake looks significantly better than CMake with its esoteric constructs. Having regular and robust PL to implement those 10% of configuration cases that cannot be defined with "standard" declarations is the way to go, IMO.

[1] https://premake.github.io/docs/What-Is-Premake