RE: Suitability of Lua as a First Programming Language?

["Shaun Seckman (Firaxis)" <Shaun.Seckman@...>]

Those are amazing lists :)

Lua has grown very popular in the games industry and is used as a
scripting language for games such as World of Warcraft, Farcry and
Neverwinter Nights.  I've met many people who learned Lua as their first
programming language merely to create nifty mods for these games.  They
enjoy the immediate visual feedback from seeing their mod in action. 

In this sense, Lua served as a gateway drug to their interest in
programming and now many I know have started to learn C++ or Python.


-----Original Message-----
From: lua-bounces@bazar2.conectiva.com.br
[mailto:lua-bounces@bazar2.conectiva.com.br] On Behalf Of Petite Abeille
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 3:46 PM
To: Lua list
Subject: Re: Suitability of Lua as a First Programming Language?


On Sep 22, 2009, at 10:40 PM, David Given wrote:

> Learning Forth taught me how to program in C.
> Learning Smalltalk taught me how to program in Java.
> Learning Java taught me the importance of pragmatism.
> Learning C taught me the importance of elegance.
> Learning machine code taught me how computers think.
> Learning Intercal taught me how programmers think.
> Learning BASIC taught me what I could do.
> Learning C++ taught me what not to do.
> Learning Javascript taught me that good ideas can still go wrong.
> Learning Lua taught me that getting things wrong can't stop a good  
> idea.
> Learning Haskell taught me how much I still didn't know.
>
> I still haven't learnt Cobol.

Nice :)

In the same vein:

Algol: Assembly language is too low-level.
Pascal: Algol doesn't have enough data types.
Modula: Pascal is too wimpy for systems programming.
Simula: Algol isn't good enough at simulations.
Smalltalk: Not everything in Simula is an object.
Fortran: Assembly language is too low-level.
Cobol: Fortran is scary.
PL/1: Fortran doesn't have enough data types.
Ada: Every existing language is missing something.
Basic: Fortran is scary.
APL: Fortran isn't good enough at manipulating arrays.
J: APL requires its own character set.
C: Assemby language is too low-level.
C++: C is too low-level.
Java: C++ is a kludge. And Microsoft is going to crush us.
C#: Java is controlled by Sun.
Lisp: Turing Machines are an awkward way to describe computation.
Scheme: MacLisp is a kludge.
T: Scheme has no libraries.
Common Lisp: There are too many dialects of Lisp.
Dylan: Scheme has no libraries, and Lisp syntax is scary.
Perl: Shell scripts/awk/sed are not enough like programming languages.
Python: Perl is a kludge.
Ruby: Perl is a kludge, and Lisp syntax is scary.
Prolog: Programming is not enough like logic.

What Languages Fix
http://www.paulgraham.com/fix.html