Matej Cepl <mc...@redhat.com> writes: > The point is that you are never interested in learning *a language*, > everybody who has at least some touch with programming can learn most > languages in one session in the afternoon.
Really, that's only if the new language is pretty much the same as the old ones, in which case you haven't really learned much of anything. Languages that use interesting new concepts are challenges in their own right. Here is an interesting exercise for statically typed languages, unsuitable for Python but not too hard in Haskell: http://blog.tmorris.net/understanding-practical-api-design-static-typing-and-functional-programming/ It doesn't require the use of any libraries, standards, style, or culture. I can tell you as a fairly strong Python programemr who got interested in Haskell a few years ago, it took me much longer than an afternoon to get to the point of being able to solve a problem like the above. It required absorbing new concepts that Python simply does not contain. But it gave me the ability to do things I couldn't do before. That's a main reason studying new languages is challenging and worthwhile. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list