Good ways to competently learn a programming language?

hobbledehoy899

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2015
Messages
2,874
Trophies
1
XP
2,192
Country
Antarctica
I'm primarily trying to learn Lua for use with the Love2D framework and would like some advice on how to actually learn to do stuff with it and (at least partially) memorize knowledge about the language.

Thanks in advance.​
 

Issac

Iᔕᔕᗩᑕ
Supervisor
Joined
Apr 10, 2004
Messages
7,025
Trophies
3
Location
Sweden
XP
7,342
Country
Sweden
The boring answer: practice practice practice.
Follow tutorials and practice. I know nothing about Lua, but it's true for any programming language.
Once you've followed a few tutorials and get a feel of it, try to make small tasks for yourself to solve.
Always start by writing what you want to do, then more in detail what you need to do that thing. Then look up what programming stuff you need for each part. Then try putting it together.
 

hobbledehoy899

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2015
Messages
2,874
Trophies
1
XP
2,192
Country
Antarctica
The boring answer: practice practice practice.
Follow tutorials and practice. I know nothing about Lua, but it's true for any programming language.
Once you've followed a few tutorials and get a feel of it, try to make small tasks for yourself to solve.
Always start by writing what you want to do, then more in detail what you need to do that thing. Then look up what programming stuff you need for each part. Then try putting it together.
Yeah, that's what I've been doing with HTML.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,285
Country
United Kingdom
Find something interesting to do with it. Don't know what it might be for you but most people can learn if they have an interest beyond a vague desire and appreciation for the fact that it would be really useful to know how to code.

Games are good for this. https://sgimenez.github.io/laby/ is my usual suggestion but in a similar thread the other week had https://codecombat.com/ linked up which is very nice looking.

If you really want to get into games then many emulators support lua in such a way that you can alter games in substantial ways. fceux for the NES is the main reference for most http://www.fceux.com/web/help/fceux.html?LuaScripting.html but it is on every system up to and including desmume for the DS http://wiki.desmume.org/index.php?title=Faq#What_is_this_Lua_stuff_I_see.3F . Tool assisted speedrun folks are where you want to look for that as not all the biggest emulators for a given system will sport it out of the box.
In any case it might take you further into ROM hacking than you might care to go for this but on the other hand if you wanted to learn some ROM hacking, or at least the game's internal logic bothering side of it rather than the text and graphics stuff most tutorials start with and focus primarily upon then it could get you somewhere in that.

and a choice thing that should be rewritten for most languages as it applies everywhere
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/shz02d41.aspx
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    also gonna install twilight menu in my r4 flashcard
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    One thing that just occurred to me.... The sound on the 2600 sucked less back then the harsh sound we hear now is from infinitely better speakers we have now, back when the 2600 was new speakers produced a almost muffled sound, like CRTs made old graphics look slightly better.
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I wonder if I could recommend that to some emulation devs that perhaps the sound could use some smoothing out to simulate those old TVs
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I think a few of the early systems could benefit from that, at least up to the 8 bit generation, by the 16 bit generation I think TVs had gotten a lot better in almost every way
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    i dont have an sd card adapter but I have an usb sd card adapter
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Old people games
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    its not the one that comes with the r4
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    doesnt work (my flashcard is from r4isdhc.com)
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    might install ysmenu first
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Try Wood firmware
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    For your R4
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    It's old but it's the best firmware out for DS stuff
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    it says it only works for the original R4, R4i Gold (r4ids.cn), R4iDSN (r4idsn.com) and Acekard R.P.G.
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    nvm it does support mine
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    but why choose it over ysmenu @Psionic Roshambo?
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    bc im stupid?
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    yea ik im stupid
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    good night
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Just give it a try, but honestly if you have a 3DS you can play DS games without a card just off the internal SD card
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Slightly slower loading but a bit more convenient
  • BakerMan @ BakerMan:
    guys, my fuckin headphones have an out of place speaker
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Did you try wearing them?
    B @ btjunior: @Xdqwerty 16