Re: Help i'm new

[David Kastrup <dak@...>]

Paul Smith <paullocal@pscs.co.uk> writes:

> Lua isn't really meant to be a 'teaching' language.

It is not complicated enough for that: you are finished teaching all too
soon and can start serious work.

[...]

> So, yes, I think you probably did choose the wrong starting point for
> learning to program. (Personally, I'd have probably downloaded Visual
> Studio Express C++, C# or VB depending on what you wanted)

Having learnt to program using various assembly languages, Forth,
Fortran (on a mainframe) and a few other things, I don't think there is
such a thing as a wrong starting point, like there is no wrong starting
point for learning a natural language.  Actually, I think C++ and VB
much worse starting points than Lua since both languages are, in
different ways, a mess.  They are also so large and humongous that you
think any missing things must be your own fault.  For example, one can't
do serious object oriented programming (which is centered about message
passing) since they don't have a workable coroutine concept.  They offer
just a single flow of control.

In contrast, you can easily set up multiple stacks even in assembly
language and switch control by switching stack pointers and returning
somewhere else.  Lua is not much harder in that respect.

-- 
David Kastrup