Hi,
For a complete lua or programming newb, are there any tutorials you would suggest?
I have an idea for an alternate control scheme for a game, that I want to suggest to a developer…
Codea will allow me to do it… if I can figure it out.
Thank you!
Looked at every book (and bought two). For a new programmer, I think one tutorial and one book, stand out. Tutorial: http://www.wra1th.plus.com/lua/book/contents.html Don’t worry about it being RISCLua. For the book (only four total that are about just Lua), the only really beginner’s book is http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Lua-Programming-Programmer-ebook/dp/B005J58M7Y/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1320109858&sr=8-3
WIth Lua so popular a game-scripting language, you’d think there’d be more action on the book front. But most who use it are already C++ programmers who have little trouble picking it up Lua.
If Codea includes excellent tutorials of both Lua and the framework, it becomes the premier learning-to-program environment, something that’s been the goal of Smalltalk 72, Logo, Basic, and Pascal in the past; more recently, Scratch, and Processing (Java, you’re kidding?), App Inventor, Alice, Squeak, EToys, and others. There is something wrong with every one of those solutions. Either they’re too geeky (e.g., Squeak) or too limited (.e.g., Logo, EToys). I always get the feeling that the designers of those approaches know little about children and what motivates them. Kids aren’t fooled by broccoli with sugar frosting, or Twinkies fortified with vitamins. And, btw, a superior learning environment for young people is a good learning environment for everyone.
Codea could be the beginning of a marriage of Steve Jobs’s design sense and Alan Kay’s pedagogical ambitions. (It’s a shame that Jobs abandoned his interest in computers for learning and never worked with Kay to develop a Dynabook – Kay tried to get Jobs to allow Squeak on the iPad.)
Anyway, congratulations to Simeon for creating the first advance on HyperCard for non-geek programming. Good integrated tutorials will be key.
For a complete newb as myself, I found this tutorials very helpful http://www.dev-hq.net/3-Lua/16-Hello-World 
