Should I take the time to fully learn lua?

General discussion about LÖVE, Lua, game development, puns, and unicorns.
Post Reply
User avatar
Vimm
Party member
Posts: 113
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:14 pm

Should I take the time to fully learn lua?

Post by Vimm »

So I've never actually studied lua before jumping into LOVE, and have kind of just been learning what I need as I go. Would it be worth it to take the time and learn to language completely, or just keep doing what I've been doing?
(This is probably the video I'd watch if I were to learn the language:
[youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4eNl1rA1Ns
[/youtube] )
User avatar
TheOdyssey
Citizen
Posts: 52
Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2015 4:29 pm
Location: Turn Around...

Re: Should I take the time to fully learn lua?

Post by TheOdyssey »

I think that depends on what type of person you are and what you personally prefer. In my opinion I think it's better to learn a decent amount and then go in. For example, I jumped into Löve before learning a lot of essential things, like table indexing, "object orientation", etc. so you should probably learn up to an intermediate level and then try Löve out (after all, it is kind of depressing to learn a language looking at all the shiny things but being confined to a terminal)

But seriously, just learn the language. I sucked when I started with Löveand I still do but that's none of your buisness
bobbyjones
Party member
Posts: 730
Joined: Sat Apr 26, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: Should I take the time to fully learn lua?

Post by bobbyjones »

You should be fine with just using love and learning what you need as time goes. There is no reason for you to practice Lua. More likely than not most of it will be forgetten anyways. Just Google whatever you need to get something done. Over time you will learn.
User avatar
airstruck
Party member
Posts: 650
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:11 pm
Location: Not being time thief.

Re: Should I take the time to fully learn lua?

Post by airstruck »

Yes. The language is very small and simple, and the PIL book and reference manual are both short reads. Take a few hours to read them if you haven't done that yet, it's bound to save you a lot more time later since you won't have to interrupt your workflow to figure out how to do what you want.

If nothing else, at least read part one and part three of PIL, and look at the reference manual's table of contents and read about anything you're not familiar with so you'll know what's available to you.

One of the nice things about Lua is it's actually possible to read most of the canonical material and learn most of the language in a very small amount of time. You might as well take advantage of that.
User avatar
Vimm
Party member
Posts: 113
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:14 pm

Re: Should I take the time to fully learn lua?

Post by Vimm »

airstruck wrote:Yes. The language is very small and simple, and the PIL book and reference manual are both short reads. Take a few hours to read them if you haven't done that yet, it's bound to save you a lot more time later since you won't have to interrupt your workflow to figure out how to do what you want.

If nothing else, at least read part one and part three of PIL, and look at the reference manual's table of contents and read about anything you're not familiar with so you'll know what's available to you.

One of the nice things about Lua is it's actually possible to read most of the canonical material and learn most of the language in a very small amount of time. You might as well take advantage of that.
Yeah I think looking at the reference manual and just reading up on things I dont know how to do is basically the best of both worlds.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Nabeel, rabbitboots and 51 guests