RE: Simple AI Scripting, Help Me!

[virgil@... (Virgil Smith)]

> Oh, you meant "like a Kernighan-Ritchie book" :-)
>
> The above rant is my way to say that the Lua reference manual is one of
the
> best language manuals I read. On that I think we agree.

My $0.02.
The Lua Manual is extremely well written, both as an introduction to the
language and as a reference.  It introduces the language features (and most
of the motivations) while staying very short and to the point.  It's brief
enough to be a very good reference, but written in a readably organized
fashion.

There is only 1 caveat to the manual that I would recommend to beginners.
This is a "process for learning from the manual".
1. Read the manual all the way through.
2. Read the manual all the way through.
3. Now sit back and think about what you can do with the language features.
4. Now, read the manual all the way through.
5. Now sit back and think about the motivations behind the language features
and how neatly they fit together.
6. (Optional) Go write up some code snippets, bounce around in the manual
checking details, (very optional) dance around with glee, rub your hands
together and form a malicious grin thinking about all of the things you can
do with this tool and how easy it will be to slip into whatever you are
working on.  (Optional, culturally dependent, and getting terribly silly at
this point) Ponder the universe and the fundamental nature of human beings
that somebody would just give away something so amazingly useful and
coherent.  Express this through religious activism, donations to
humanitarian societies, and long yoga meditation exercises performed in the
glow of your monitor.
7. Now, read the manual all the way through.
8. Now, go carefully inspect the code for the auxiliary library and take
mental notes to yourself on how you will want to use these functions in your
own applications.