LebGeeks

Larsa

Member

Learning Lua

Hey guys , i'm passing to 12th grade in a few months and i already decided that i wanted to be a computer engineer, however i want to learn a bit of coding (hope the terminology is not wrong  ) at home, i wanted to start with Lua i only found one website that elaborates details for newbies like me , but unfortuanetly it was initially written in german and badly translated (some sentences make no sence whatsoever) , searched on youtube and found Lua in an hour , but again , too fast, i need a source that explains without sparing any details , since i have no history at all regarding this domain , so if anyone can help me out , it would be awesome , thank you

Elied

Member

Re: Learning Lua

Honestly you'd be better off learning C++ or python, that's probably what they'll teach you at your university as well. They're more forgiving languages and easier imho. Maybe check out www.thenewboston.com or similar websites.

Larsa

Member

Re: Learning Lua

thanks mate, will consider C++ and python , but now since i started off with LUA and i have an idea of its concept, i'll try to master it then move on  thank you again ;)

user

Member

Re: Learning Lua

No, I would advise you not to continue with LUA, as you noticed it is not well documented or discussed. You will get stuck somewhere and it won't be pretty(I went down that road, even got a book to read, and eventually got stuck anyway, also its lack of use demotivated me). And also, programming languages are all similar, and if you are learning the basics of programming, other languages will serve that role better. And you wouldn't have wasted all what you learned in LUA since you did not get to advanced yet.

What did you learn so far? setting variables, doing loops and printing the result? You'll find those in most languages. They're basically the same concepts, just a different way of writing.

Johnaudi

Member

Re: Learning Lua

IMO C# is the best language to start with, with an easy to use syntax, and it is almost as flexible as C++.

Larsa

Member

Re: Learning Lua

Alright thanks a lot guys, i will look into it tomorrow

rolf

Member

Re: Learning Lua

I'm sure you can find proper documentation for Lua I remember coming across something like that, I'll try to look it up for you:

Ok so it took me like 5 seconds:
http://www.lua.org/manual/5.3/

Yes it is annoying, but if you want to be a programmer better get used to it soon, you will read a lot of annoying documentation.

If you want a language that is well documented for beginners PHP could work. But I would advise you to try javascript instead. It should also be well documented. You can try javascript code in your browser console (F12) or install node.js.

PS: C++ is the mother of all languages, if you can stand the compiler and cope with the APIs (or are happy writing 70ies style console applications).

How about Java?

Last edited by rolf (June 1 2015)

Joe

Member

Re: Learning Lua

Hey, great to hear you're interested in programming. It's a great skill to learn, and a pretty funky career if it ever turns into one.

Lua is an amazing language and I definitely encourage you to continue learning it. The absolute best resource to learn Lua is Programming in Lua (PiL). The book is available for free online. It's relevant to the 5.1 version (slightly outdated but still very relevant). If you want to pay for it, you can get the newer books.

If you want exercises, here's a collection of interesting ones.

And if you have any specific question, don't hesitate to ask here.

Larsa

Member

Re: Learning Lua

Thank you  i'll be sure to contact you if something goes wrong ;)

samer

Admin

Re: Learning Lua

You should also check out Joe's "Introduction to Lua" talk.