On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:14 AM, Roger Austin <raust...@nc.rr.com> wrote: > I am using the Prag Prog approach and learning one language a year or at least > targeting one. Get proficient rather than just hit to highlights. This year, > I am working on clojure and getting better at javascript/jquery/whatever. I > am also learning .NET languages since I can use those in my work life.
This is a reasonable approach too - and one I've employed for a long time (with breaks). 2008 was my Groovy year (I used it in production), 2009 was my Scala year (it's in production now), 2010 was my Clojure year (hopefully going to production in the next couple of months). Not sure what 2011 will bring. I may continue to focus on Clojure and Scala to get more proficient in those before I pick up another language. Previous years have covered Haskell and Erlang - but not enough to get code in production - with brief looks at Ruby, Python and other languages in years before that. Part of the difficulty is that it's hard to get proficient without being able to do production-ready projects in those languages - and that's a luxury that most of us don't get. > I don't have anything against the 7 languages book. The question in my mind > is whether it is the best use of someones time. If you are like me, I have > very little spare time so I want to maximize the value of what I am learning. The main benefit of the 7 languages book is "thinking different" rather than proficiency. Prolog, Io and Haskell are languages that almost no one gets to use in production yet they are so fundamentally different from mainstream languages that you learn "new thinking" which helps you look at your day-to-day problems in new, different and refreshing ways. One of the observations that Tate makes in the book is that he didn't really get JavaScript until he learned Io (it's a prototype-based language). > It makes sense to me to decide what languages would be the best for my > long term career and dive into those. The use of the 7 languages book could > be a start, but I wouldn't say you know how to code afterward. Right. 7 languages alone won't teach you to use these languages for your career - but that's not the intent. Given the rise of so many new languages recently, long term I think folks need to be polyglots. In the medium term, looking purely at employability, I think learning Java and / or C# is a safe move. Python seems to be a good bet in the scripting world. Perhaps PHP (if you really want to be a low paid scripter :) But you won't learn as much from those languages, in terms of techniques and problem solving, as you will from stuff like Haskell, Io and Prolog. -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://getrailo.com/ An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:340761 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
