Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:55:10 -0600, Rainer Deyke thusly wrote: > language_fan wrote: >> The members of the last group have studied computer science and >> languages, in particular. They have found a pet academic language, >> typically a pure one, but paradigms may differ. In fact this is the >> group which uses something other than the hybrid >> object-oriented/procedural model. They appreciate a strong, orthogonal >> core language that scales cleanly. They are not scared of esoteric >> non-C-like syntax. They use languages that are not ready to take a step >> to the "real world" during the 70 next years. > > Of the three types, this comes closest to describing me. Yet, I am > completely self-taught, and my preferred language is still C++. (I > wouldn't call it my pet language. I loathe C++, I just haven't found a > suitable replacement yet.) > > Stereotypes are dangerous.
Indeed they are. My post should have been taken with a grain of salt. The idea was to show that languages in each group have their advantages and disadvantages. There is nothing wrong with being self-taught, many times people with formal education lack the passion many amateurs share. What is bad is that many people can only express their ideas in one kind of language, and that is usually their pet language. If you study Java, C#, C++, and D, they are all very similar to each other. Especially if you try to avoid learning all advanced features that are not common to all of them. In that case you don't know four different languages, but a single simple language mostly suitable for basic end user application development. On the other hand, knowing 40 academic languages will not get you far, either.
