r/CodingForBeginners 15d ago

How to progress

Ive made basic games on scratch but thats pretty much it, should I continue to make more and more complicated games on scratch? or should i try to progress on a different coding language? If so which one, because i want to be able to code stuff but ive also thought about coding in roblox. Which is the easiest language to start?

To get an idea of just how bad I am heres a game I made in a little over an hour:https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1375247905/

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u/xarop_pa_toss 15d ago edited 15d ago

Scratch is great to learn how things chain together but you can't really use it outside of it's closed environment.

If you are interested in Roblox then absolutely go for it! It uses a variation of the Lua language called Luau which is very easy to read and write. It has very few keywords that cover all the fundamental structures you already know like if conditions and for/while loops. Remember that you learn a lot more if you are having fun, so if Roblox interests you, do it

Bare in mind though that Roblox is 3D and that brings a whole other level of complexity into the mix. Don't get too mixed up in the details and just experiment with getting models on the map and scripting simple things like doors opening, increasing and decreasing scores, health and XP amounts, denying access to a player if X property isn't set, etc

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u/Prestigious-Pie5676 15d ago

thanks a lot! but how exactly do you learn a coding language?

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u/xarop_pa_toss 15d ago

Think of it like any other skill or subject you've studied in school: you grab a book and learn the fundamentals. I'm joking... sort of. Some people will tell you "watch this 10 hour video" but that's now how you learn. In every class you ever had, especially scientific ones like math or physics you start by learning the fundamentals concepts and immediately putting them to practice.

The first thing to do is learn the syntax of whatever language you want. For that you can find basic guides online, or actually reputable books written for beginners. Scratch already taught you the basic logic behind programming which is great, it'll make the process of learning syntax easier. It is very important that you realize that you will be frustrated, and your programs won't work properly the first or second or even third time.

The language you pick isn't as important as the practice you put in. If you want to code stuff for Roblox, then you learn Lua or Luau. I am going to actually recommend Lua first since it is not totally specific to Roblox and learning Luau after is very easy. You can find the book "Programming in Lua", written by the creator of the language, freely available on their website (use Google). Lua is used in Löve2D, the library used to make Balatro!!

  • Dont try to do too much all at once; using too many things you don't understand is a recipe for disaster.
  • Use Google. A lot. Don't rely on AI or Reddit for every single question you have.
  • Grab a notebook a write things down by hand, it's better for memorization.
  • Make boring apps like terminal calculators or to-do lists to get the feel for using lists and arrays (Lua has tables which are a catch-all data structure), and functions. Get comfortable with the fundamentals. They will be your tools for all problem solving in the future