Is it possible to learn lua in 1 month

[u/BillAble8466]

I want to make a roblox game but i have one month and dont know anything about Lua is it possible to learn lua in one month, if yes can you give me advice how to learn it

[u/moucheh-]

https://learnxinyminutes.com/lua/

This is a good start

[u/toxic_prince21]

Yeah, totally doable. A month is plenty to get comfortable with the Lua basics you need for Roblox, things like variables, functions, loops, tables, and events. You won't be an expert, but you'll be able to build real stuff.

What helped me: don't just watch tutorials, write code from day one. Roblox uses Luau (a typed Lua dialect), so once you've got core Lua syntax down, spend time specifically in Roblox Studio's script editor since that's where the game specific APIs live (services, RemoteEvents, etc.).

If you want to mess around with Lua/Luau syntax without opening Studio every time, I built weblua.com . It's free, runs in the browser, no signup, and supports Luau. Useful for quick experiments before jumping into an actual Roblox project. It's my own site, just sharing since it fits what you're asking.

Otherwise the official Roblox Creator docs plus a couple of YouTube series (DevKing, AlvinBlox) will get you most of the way there.

[u/XenoX101 → u/toxic_prince21]

You won't be an expert

Is there such a thing as a "Lua expert"?

[u/toxic_prince21 → u/XenoX101]

There are levels to every programming language, even the easiest ones.

[u/XenoX101 → u/toxic_prince21]

I know, I was half-joking, though I do wonder how much better an expert at Lua would code compared to a non-expert given the sheer simplicity of the language.

[u/pschon → u/XenoX101]

It's not the complexity of the language that matters, it's how good you are at applying it to different problems and complex things you build with it.

...kind of how an expert bass player can still be miles ahead of a novice, even though the instrument only has 4 strings.

[u/XenoX101 → u/pschon]

it's how good you are at applying it to different problems and complex things you build with it.

Is that still the realm of being an expert at Lua though? Or is that being an expert at software engineering as a whole.

[u/pschon → u/XenoX101]

if it isn't, then you can't be an expert in C or ASM or any other language either.

I would say you can be an expert in the language though in addition to general software engineering skills, as the ways how you solve different problems still depends on the specific features of that language, and how to apply them to the problem in question. And how you do some things can be very different between languages, especially if you compare some high-level language that comes with a billion libraries for doing very specific things versus something minimal and more on the "build your own solution" end of things like Lua.

...plus of course someone actually integrating Lua into another program or building their own Lua interpreter etc would without a question be on quite a different level from someone just using it to write scripts using already-existing API inside a specific game etc.

[u/XenoX101 → u/pschon]

C is more complicated than Lua, both in its implementation and in the number of libraries available for it as you you have alluded. I would agree though that it's less being an expert at C and more being an expert at developing with C, since C itself is still fairly bare-bones (deliberately so), there isn't much to get about the language to be an expert.

[u/pschon → u/XenoX101]

C is more complicated than Lua

Again, it's not how complicated the language is, but about how clever you are at applying it's features to make things. Sometimes it takes more skill (rather than just being better at remembering things) to build something using simpler tools.

Being an expert at something is not a question of how many things there are to remember, and how many of those you do remember.

Just like my example of a bass player and only 4 strings.

[u/Additional-Elk-3712]

it would depend on your current knowledge and the best approach the works for you which unique for everyone.
if you have fundamental programming knowledge, a month would likely be enough to pick up Lua, its one of the simplest language. But if you have zero programming knowledge, then learning it in a month depends entirely in your dedication to learn and how much time your willing to spend daily. I would say start with the basic instead of jumping right into Lua, like you can watch CS-50, its free and covers the most basic stuff. you dont need to finish course, just the basic part, then find some Lua tutorial, or spend like $10-$50 for a Lua course in Udemy

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[u/hawhill]

You sound like someone who promised a bit too much for a school show & tell. Been there, done that ;-) In my case it was hand-soldering a PCB, though. Was too young to consider that stuff might simply not work as planned and boom goes your time budget.

I am assuming you have no programming knowledge? Then it will certainly be a very very steep uphill battle, plus you won't be writing good software. Yet there might be some results. Can you (as: it's allowed) use AI? Because LLMs are quite good at writing Lua code. Or talking with you about your code and they are really really well suited at discussing code examples with you, you can ask them questions over questions and they will not be annoyed over getting asked something that is right in front of you in the Lua manual. Quite a difference compared to asking experts in, say, a Lua subreddit ;-)