Good introductory texts ? (was Re: Suitability of Lua as a First Programming Language?)

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
> I think the main criterion is availability of introductory texts.
> Without that, creating a course will be a lot of work.  (I found
> Programming in Lua an extremely inspiring read, but it's probably not
> that helpful to absolute beginners.)

Yes, I would put it on my bookshelf next to K & R, in terms of
clarity.  But K & R is not an introductory text either ;)

There are other Lua books (often in the games context); are they
better at introductions? Is there a niche here for a good
introduction? I've written & published a book, it was a great
experience, but there would have to be readers ;)

>  But the default, non-strict mode would be unnecessarily
> confusing, I fear.

You mean misspellings being new global variables? Yes, strict.lua is a
great little tool.

Interactivity is a big, big plus, because it allows for an almost
conversational mode of language learning.  Whether all people learn
PLs better in conversational mode I don't know, but it certainly works
for a lot of people.

steve d.