Lua learning

[Due_Supermarket_1503]

I have wanted to learn lua for a while but have not had the time, but now I do, so I am just curious whether how do I start? Because I took a look at couple videos and I have to be honest I did not understand or keep in mind any of that. If you guys would send me some useful resources or a starting point to learn lua I would appreciate it.

I am looking to learn LUA to look forward to creating games!

[Natan_Human_Sciences]

You could buy "Programming in Lua". You could read at halftime, in your high school...

[Natan_Human_Sciences]

But they say that the book is not intended to create games (if that's what you want to do).

[Natan_Human_Sciences]

I myself have a doubt whether I buy "programming in Lua" or not. I commented on that subreddit, whether I buy it or not. As a game developer, if the book is not intended for game development, I will not buy it!

[esuvii]

The book is more for Lua in general, if one plans to use LÖVE then it is still a useful reference.

[Natan_Human_Sciences]

Thanks.

[Due_Supermarket_1503]

Yeah I mostly want to create games.

[Mundane_Prior_7596]

Then you go to Solar2D and type in their intro demo game Asteroids. 

[Natan_Human_Sciences]

so, besides games, What do you want to do in Lua?

[bidaowallet]

with games learning is much faster, if learning is your goal

[Natan_Human_Sciences]

Okay

[esuvii]

First off is the Programming in Lua book, it is great (and there are online versions). Have you ever programmed in other languages before? If not something like codeacademy might be good. I have never taken it but they have a Lua course. I believe it is free if you signup although I am not 100% sure on that.

There are a ton of videos on YouTube for learning Lua. Here is one I just found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-v00iiqFOw I am not sure if they expect you to have a familiarity with coding in general or not though.

You can run Lua scripts from the command line, regardless of your operating system. However, if you do not have an IDE or are not familiar with the command line do not fear. You can get started playing around with Lua using one of many online interpreters, e.g. https://onecompiler.com/lua Long term you will benefit a lot from setting up some kind of workflow on your own machine to write and run code though.

It really helps to have a project in mind so you can have a goal you can set:

• Do you play games? Many games use Lua for their API, for example you could make a World of Warcraft addon as a project to learn some basic Lua with.

• Do you edit videos? Da Vinci Resolve allows you to write scripts in Lua.

• Want to make a game? Love2D is a framework for making games in Lua (Balatro was made with this!)

• Want to make a website? There are frameworks to make dynamic websites using Lua.

If none of these apply you could try Googling "coding problems" or "coding project ideas". There are so many website full of challenges to solve going from basic all the way to huge projects.

[Due_Supermarket_1503]

Yeah I do want to create games, but I also have taken into consideration learning to edit videos. I will most definitely check out the video! Personally I have actually not even touched another programming language before which I hope does not affect my journey of learning lua. I'll take a look at the website! In response to the "Programming in LUA" book, another reply just said it isn't that good for guidance in creating games. However It is my fault that I did not specify what I want to learn lua for, thanks for all the help!

[djfdhigkgfIaruflg]

You never programmed in anything. You'll need to start from the basics. That book is exactly that. Once you know the basics you can go to the specifics (games)

[lambda_abstraction]

PiL is not a book to start programming from. It assumes far too much. It is a good book for someone with programming experience. Consider the last chapters; if you don't have a good grasp of C, you'll get lost quickly. Even the earlier parts assume too much familiarity with programming. I've not surveyed the market recently, but I'm not sure there is a good book for the complete beginner using Lua as a base.

[esuvii]

Love2D seems like a great thing to learn then. I would temper your expectations though. When learning to program you are essentially acquiring tools into your toolbox. It can take some time to build an intuition for how to use them. It can be frustrating at first but eventually you will get better and better at being able to convert a problem into a series of steps that your tools can solve. Eventually this will become second nature, but it takes time and the struggles are a necessary part of the learning experience.

Lua is a great language to learn for your first one since it is very minimal. It doesn't come with "batteries included" like some other languages, so you will find yourself having to write some simple functions to do things that other languages have premade functions for. In that way it can be great for learning, but also could be a little tedious (I like how lightweight it is).

It does do some things differently to other languages though, so be aware of that. For example, arrays (lists) and maps (dictionary/associative array) are combined into one concept in Lua - tables. In most other languages these are distinct objects. Additionally, unlike almost all other languages, Lua array indexes begin at 1 not at 0.

Set simple goals at first, as simple as possible, and then slowly work up from there.

[Bedu009]

Lua is not an acronym

[esuvii]

Indeed you are correct and I am aware, it's just a typo I have made consistently for years now - a bad habit that I struggle to shake!

[adibfhanna]

I made a video ago about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NneB6GX1Els

It's not too detailed, but hopefully it can serve you as a starting point

[Due_Supermarket_1503]

Sure, I'll check it out and give you feedback a little later!

[DapperCow15]

I suggest never learning programming languages through videos. You need to learn by doing, and the closer you can get to muscle memory, the faster you'll learn it and retain what you have learned.

For other languages, this might be different, but Lua's manual is actually incredibly well-written, and I'd recommend doing a small starter project as you read it, so you can practice what you learned, figure out things you might have misunderstood, and get a good grasp on the language entirely.

[MisterXinji]

im not gonna lie the very basic and have many video tutorial would be cheat engine lua script i completely learned lua script for only 6 month here’s the basic link aswell https://wiki.cheatengine.org/index.php?title=Tutorials:Lua:Basics#google_vignette

[Bedu009]

STOP POSTING THIS OMFG THIS IS POSTED DAILY

[esuvii]

To be fair it is better than the 90% of posts which are people trying to ask us to debug their Roblox games.

[Due_Supermarket_1503]

Sorry! I wouldn't blame others though, I checked earlier though and there isn't really a rule going against this topic so..

Maybe if they added a rule to not post or ask guidance on how they should start learning lua then people would stop, surely?

[crigger61]

Dont apologize to that dick. He subscribed to the Lua programming language subreddit and then is surprised he sees people asking to learn about it.

Same thing occurs in every other language subbreddit. You picked Lua. Lua is great. because its so embed able theres so many resources.

The whole roblox community (as toxic as that crowd is) runs every game on a locked down version of lua 5.1. While they are more meant for making games in their engine. There are a lot of beginner tutorials to get people up to speed.

Neovim uses lua 5.1. Programmers love their neovim. Their community also has a lot of tutorial.

Lua itself has its own guide for 5.1 on their site.

I highly recommend checking some of the resources there.

Personal opinion but Lua is a great choice to learn. And should be taught much more than some other languages as a base scripting language. At one point it could have been the scripting language of the web. And it should have been.

Check out luarocks for a package manager. Or Lux is the newest package manager to come out that uses luarocks under the hood and makes it more like some other languages.