Im 19 and for years my mother has been telling me to use codecademy but most of its locked behind a paywall. Have any of you used this site, what are your thoughts on it? Are there better totally free alternatives that walk you thru everything?

Someday i want to make games or something like that but im unsure what programming language to choose. I like the look of lua but im not sure if i should go with it or what projects to learn from? Everyone here tells me if i i choose to go with gamedev someday, to pick up godot but i feel im not ready to make games and that i need to start learning the basics.