Hey guys I’m having difficulty improving my scripting skills and I want to know what you guys think about age block when it comes to improving scripting skills. I have been practicing and improving my scripting skills and I’ve always wanted to do certain things that require maths that I’m not familiar with yet but since I’m only in 8th grade. Do I just hire someone else to make these kind of systems? What could I do to make these systems myself? This demotivates me to keep improving and I was wondering what you guys think about this blocking some scripters from improving. Do you guys has similar problem?
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I think that generally speaking, programming is something that is a little more difficult to learn and understand when either you’re just starting out or you’re a bit younger. While there are great resources for learning how to script, it can take a while for someone who is learning to begin to comprehend why they are typing what they’re typing or how it all works.
I’ve found that the best solution to overcoming the roadblocks of scripting is practice, time, and resources. When I was younger I definitely did not know why I was scripting what I was from a tutorial. But the more you work with scripts, see them in action, write them, you start to understand what makes them tick and that’s where the doors really start to open up.
Once you’re at the stage where you can write your own simple code, I HIGHLY recommend using the Developer Hub for anything you don’t understand. To this day I still use the dev hub almost every time I code. It’s great for finding that one event you didn’t know was a thing, or getting more information on something you already know.
TL;DR
It takes practice, time and resources to truly start becoming comfortable with code. Even when you’re young you shouldn’t hold yourself back from what’s possible, but it WILL take time.
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I also started learning at a young age. It takes time and most of these maths concepts aren’t as hard as you think, but I did have to learn a lot of maths myself before I was taught it at school too. If you can’t find any tutorials (e.g. EgoMoose makes very good tutorials) on a concept you struggle with or don’t understand a specific part, I’d recommend asking on scripting support as there are lots of talented individuals here who can help explain things. Some things may be very frustrating and you might want to leave them to another time though.
This will also be massively beneficial to you in school, so I would recommend you continue trying to learn.
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Yes, indeed. Scripting at a younger age is quite hard. It requires time, effort and practice. Additionally, you need motivation and patience, but overtime you’ll understand and get used to it. Educate yourself as much as you can, learn the fundamentals and always ask questions. There are plenty of resources out there, and often I find myself getting demotivated as well. Just take a break and carry on. Good luck!
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You can do whatever you put your mind to. For Roblox scripting, unless you’re trying to make a Phantom Forces, math shouldn’t be too difficult. Anything you don’t know at this level will come clear to you with more practice, more dedication, more hard work. In fact, I found that my experience with Roblox development taught me a lot of math concepts that I wouldn’t learn until much later in school. Vectors, dot product, cross product, matrices, things of that nature aren’t taught at your grade level generally and belong in higher level math classes but will be important to Roblox scripting.
If you’re trying to do a complex algorithm implementation, you’re going to run into wikipedia pages and whatnot with very complex looking math with symbols you don’t understand. This is always the case. In fact, as I’ve learned more and more computer science, my projects have become much more ambitious, and in turn, I’ve run into even more extremely confusing and complex math equations I don’t understand. No matter how much math you know, I feel like running into crazy unfamiliar symbols and terminology is a given.
Anyways, you don’t need to understand absolutely every single bit of math you use in your code. I’m guessing you’re getting stuck on CFrame operations, something that I struggle with even today. If you keep trying different things, eventually you’ll find the right order of CFrame multiplications, the right CFrame functions to do what you want. Or, you should just look around and copy and paste code that does what you want for you.
Pro-tip: CFrames are hard and only a limited number of people on this website fully understand them, so stick to Vector3 operations when possible. Vectors are way easier to understand and work with and there are scenarios where vectors can substitute CFrame math just fine.
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Its not really a problem - I get where your coming from but if your that worried about not being able to do math then you could ask your teacher for extra math work or look for free math resources online!
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As I mentioned to you in direct messages, I don’t really feel there’s an “age block” as such as long as you’ve got the right mind set and determination. A lot of how I’ve learned specific skills comes down to the fact I learned these skills because I found a use for them at the time.
I didn’t sit down and decide I want to learn specific things for the sake of it; I actually, during development of a project, found a reason and the motivation to learn specific things.
I personally believe, if you have the right resources and the mind set, you can do whatever you put your mind to, but as many people have mentioned in this thread, it requires effort and dedication - don’t get discouraged when things get frustrating, because that’s all part of the learning process 
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Hey, could I ask: is 8th grade atleast 12 years old? I’m in the UK and have no idea about “Grades”. We got Primary here.
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Try to learn it yourself - don’t wait for your school. If you learn now, you can use it in your projects and you’ll already be familiar with it when you are learning it in school.
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Where I’m from (eastern US) 8th grade is 12-13, yes. Then 9th grade is usually freshman year in high school (13-14)
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Ah, mk. Just was curious is all.
Hmm not really.
Not at all.
I know young people that codes well
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I was just generally speaking since when I was younger I felt that way, but you’re right there are definitely young people out there who are already ahead of the game and creating really cool stuff.
In western usa at least for me i’ve seen 12-14 in 8th grade. Only in one instance I’ve seen somebody that was 15 but it was only ever once.
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Don’t be silly, there is nothing stopping you from learning Lua at a young age. Many people I know are younger than 13 but are still very skilled programmers, and even help me out when I need it. It’s simply a matter of the time you choose to spend learning, and how easily you give up.
I’ve been programming off and on since I was about 11, so I don’t personally feel like there’s an age barrier; there’s just the inherent disadvantage of not knowing stuff yet. Math specifically is something you can learn pretty readily outside of school, and it’s easy to look it up.
If it helps any, a lot of people don’t even remember half the stuff they’re taught in school math classes anyway, so you’re in good company. Don’t hesitate to ask people for help with math.
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Age barrier doesn’t prevent you, its just that there are math equations and things that weren’t teached to you yet, all you need to do is search it and learn it.
Im 14 and I dont feel so much difficulty at programming at all.
AlvinBlox is a example of how age barrier doesnt prevent.
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Many users here don’t have sources to back them up.
Simply put, children actually learn code easier than adults. They can think more creatively and are much more impressionable than adults. For these reasons, presenting the world of programming at a young age, vs. old, will generally be more beneficial.
However, it’s not as straight-forward as it seems. A person’s age likely corresponds to their education level; for this reason, younger programmers may not be able to perform complicated tasks, especially those involving math. These are taught in school, and it’s up to the developer to apply them in their games.
For the most part, the younger you are, the quicker you can learn the basics; the exception is older programmers will have the advantage of education to assist them.
Nevertheless, learning code at a young age is definitely positive. You get basic brain skins developing, which allows you to better think methodically and logically later down the road.
I also would like to provide myself as an example. I’ve been coding since I was in 4th grade, which paid off when starting Lua and Roblox during middle school. Most often my restrictions were ones that required complicated math, such as CFrame, trig, and calculus.
You only need this type of math in rare situations. For the most part, you can make a banger game.
tl;dr Age doesn’t really put a barrier on you.
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My computer science teacher in grade 10 used to say that you need good math skills to be a good programmer. It’s one of the few things I disagreed with him.
It really depends on what you want to do. For doing 3D manipulation (moving parts, cameras, etc) you need 3D math to understand how it works. That doesn’t mean it’s required - you could probably pull off not understanding CFrames like many have already mentioned (I speak from the same boat). But I would say, don’t let a knowledge gap be a limiter for you. You can discover a lot of things on your own in the internet age today. That doesn’t make it easy, but at least you have an option other than waiting for 2 years until you learn vectors in school.
I think people need to move away from relying on the school path for learning - you don’t need to wait for school to teach you if you want to learn something. There’s no way for them to know if you are ready to learn something as an individual, so don’t take the curriculum as age-restricted content. If you’re dedicated, you can accomplish a lot of things that the system wouldn’t expect.
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