Good Game Engines

[epicasian]

Don't learn C or C++ first; as before you delve into such programming giants as C/++, you really do want to have a solid foundation of code knowledge to build upon.

I disagree with this. I jumped straight into C++ with a minimum foundation. I don't think you should shun it off so quickly, but instead, let the OP decide if they want to jump into C/++.

[JGorard159]

I disagree with this. I jumped straight into C++ with a minimum foundation. I don't think you should shun it off so quickly, but instead, let the OP decide if they want to jump into C/++.

Yeah, maybe that's just me being bigotted and being a bit too set in my ways .It's just that I learned C++ as my 4th or 5th language, I had already dipped into Perl, Python, Javascript etc. and I felt I had a much better understanding of the syntax and I thought that I was able to grasp the basics of C++ coding before some of my friends (who just started learn C/C++ as their very first PL.)

Nonetheless, I would highly recommend learning the following languages (in no particular order), just to give you an idea of some of the different flavours of programming:

C
C++
Java/C#
Javascript
Perl
Python
LISP (Strange, but teaches some important concepts)
1 esoteric language or similar e.g. Shakespeare Programming Language or BrainFuck

[JGorard159]

On a completely unrelated note: don't you just love the way this thread is enitled 'Good Game Engines', implying that a good Game Engine will require no scripting or coding whatsoever?

I dunno, I thought it was funny...

[Ninico]

Is Python better than Lua or a they teh same thing?

[epicasian]

Once you learn the basics of Python, you can use it with PyGame to start making games. I've never seen anything to make games with Lua, though.

[JGorard159]

I must say that PyGame is a terrific library! Python and Lua are not the same things in any way; Python is an extremely powerful programming and scripting language, nearly as powerful as C/++, which also has bindings to many popular graphical librarise such as OpenGL (PyOpenGL) and even SDL. Lua is more of a programming concept than an actual language, you cannot make a game using just Lua. It is more likely to be a scripting language which is embedded into an Engine (written in a much more powerful language like C++), to do things which the Engine was not intended to do, which is pretty much what the ES team are doing at the moment.

[JGorard159]

The reason it is a good idea to learn both Python and Lua is, in fact, because they are so different.

Lua is a nice language because it is so easy to bind and wrap with C++ (making it a popular game engine scripting language), it's completely cross-platform and very portable, it's very lightweight and won't leave too large a CPU footprint and, on top of that, it's a very simple language to learn. But Lua by itself cannot do much more than print text to the screen .

[XianForce]

You may want to be careful when saying Python is as powerful as C/++... Somebody may get offended XD. But Lua was created to be an integrated scripting language, Python on the other hand was meant to be more multipurpose, which is why its both a scripting and programming language. But Python in terms of speed, Python isn't nearly as fast as C/++... Thinking solely about functionality, Python may be "as powerful" as C/++ but it definitely is not as fast :p. But Python is definitely a great place to start

[JGorard159]

Yep, I certainly agree. Obviously, by it's very nature of interpretation and execution, Python will never be as fast as C/++, but it's standard library is huge, and it has many bindings with popular APIs and Librarys. I think it's a great first language to learn, as it will teach you some important basics, and it is also useful (I find) when starting out with Object Oriented Programming.