1. There are many courses that are free – the only payment is at the end if you want a certificate.
2. Lua is as good as any other language to start with. Python, Ruby are also popular starting languages. If you’re going to continue to program, then you’ll probably change languages several times in your career. What’s important is to learn the generic concepts of programming, such as input/output, looping, functions; once you are familiar with concepts, changing languages isn’t a big deal. Start anywhere and build from there.

A lot of others are commenting some great stuff. I would like to add, knowing how to program is less about knowing the specific syntax of different commands, and is more about knowing how to work with functional groups and logical paths. Once you get that down, moving to another language then becomes learning the syntax and quirks of the new language.

So, any language is a good starting point, a lot of the skills you learn from it will be applicable to lots of others.

personally, I started with Basic, then C by way of microcontroller and robotics programming.

Please consider instead:

1. Fullstackopen
2. Hyperskill
3. Envato Tuts+
4. Zenva Academy
5. Hexlet
6. Coddy
7. Tutorialzine
8. freeCodeCamp

I’ve had more luck with people using freecodecamp. It gives you goals to build. But just learning your first real language will help either way. GL!

I’ve used it in the past, it’s great.

Generally you get what you pay for. A paid course will have a proper progression and structure and while you can find the same into on YouTube it’ll be scattered and disjointed, making it kinda aimless.

Hi there, nice to meet you. I’m 14 and i’ve used codecademy to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and ReactJS. It was a really good experience for me, although i did not pay anything. The most interesting stuff are paid unfurtunatley.

If you want to make games then you may check Unity, wich uses C#, or Godot, wich uses GDScript (Similar to Python and lua)

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I don’t know codecademy, but there is also:
cs50x
Don’t know what people think of it, but it helped me a lot in understanding the basics of programming and I really liked the exercises. But I am just a hobby programmer working on smaller stuff.

Something people don’t mention in the comments is that codeacademy is only really for learning the very basics of programming. It’s great if you’re just getting started and have no idea how to program, but once you start getting into more intermediate territory these gamified services lose their appeal.

Codeacademy is cool if you’re looking for a crash course into programming essentials, but if you really want to get into it I’d recommend buying a course.

I’ve paid for codecademy before. The tasks are too simple and too non-practical. It’s common that you’ll make “mad libs” and “shopping lists” that you would never use in real applications. I recommend you try other methods. Maybe trying to make a GUI or 3D application.

Start with the basics of programming. Game dev is a specialization, and it can wait until after you’ve learned the basics.

Feel free to pick any language to start with. Your first language is just a medium for learning basic programming concepts, you’ll eventually migrate elsewhere. Or not. Programming concepts are your real skills, language is just a language. Like Japanese engineer or Italian engineer, engineering is the real skill and language is just a language.

Books walk you through everything. You can proceed through the chapters at your own pace. They’re free if you borrow them from the library.

Start with a language that is popular in your domain of interest. If that’s systems, learn C. If it’s data science, learn Python or Julia. If it’s web, learn Javascript.