World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons Reviews

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3 comments on “World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons Reviews”

  1. 40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Absolutely indispensable., May 16, 2008
    By 
    Chris Heald (Phoenix, Arizona) –
    (REAL NAME)
      

    This review is from: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons (Paperback)

    Wow. Now this is a gem of a programming reference. The bar to writing tech references is really low these days, and as a result there are lots of tech books on the market that are really empty and only end up giving you one or two useful concepts.

    This is not one of those books.

    I just got my copy today, and my initial impression was how impressed I was by the thoroughness of it. This is a reference that will be of use for people of all skill and experience levels. The opening chapters provide a great introduction to Lua itself, then Lua in the context of WoW, and then hold your hand through creating your first addon, before diving into more complex concepts such as programmatic UI creation and state headers.

    I’m the author of a number of high-profile WoW addons, including Omen and Chatter, and I can honestly say that this is a book that I’ll actually use – and I don’t use many references. Gentle enough for the new programmer, but meaty enough for the experienced. This is one that will be of genuine use to anyone interested in modding WoW, or understanding the WoW mod UI system. This is a genuine, stick-it-on-your-desk, mark-it-up-and-dog-ear-the-pages reference that you’ll use for as long as you’re developing addons.

    Of note, this is actually a reference that may be of use to people embedding Lua in their own software projects. It dissects WoW’s implementation of Lua, and how it ties into the user interface, and explains a lot of concepts that may be of use to people looking to use Lua in a non-WoW context. It’s certainly not a reference on embedding Lua in your own application, but its explanation of WoW’s implementation is a fantastic reference point.

    If you have any interest at all in addon development, get this book.

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  2. 13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    A-Grade Game Dev / Modding Tome, May 14, 2008
    By 
    D. Toose (Brisbane, Australia) –
    (REAL NAME)
      

    This review is from: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons (Paperback)

    I’m a game designer who’s currently just getting into Lua scripting, and of the 7 or so game dev books I’ve bought recently this book is EASILY the best. It’s useful for ANYONE working on WoW Addons, and also a great buy for anyone learning Lua scripting.

    Unlike most of the game dev literature I’ve seen, this book totally avoids wasting paper on descriptive waffle that is obvious to anyone who plays games (and everyone who makes games does, or should).

    For beginners – The introduction to scripting in Lua is MUCH easier to digest than any of the Lua-specific tutorials online, or ‘Programming in Lua’.

    For experienced scripters or mod-makers – There are over 600 pages on reference, so even if you’ve got nothing to learn technically, it’s still a worthy buy.

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  3. 14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Great Book!, May 3, 2008
    By 
    Andrew Killion –
    (REAL NAME)
      

    Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
    This review is from: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons (Paperback)

    I just got this book and love it. Very useful coming from a novice programmer with no knowledge of LUA programming. It’s a very thick book over 1000 pages and well written. The book is written by a few authors that have created some very nice and complex addons. Between the book and their website anyone can pick up programming in WoW. If anyone wants to write their own addons in WoW or just learn to modify some that they use, then this book is a must have.

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