I do a tutorial of the language I want to learn, but often I find it is not enough. So, I just browse open-source projects (usually GitHub), check their programming style, learn new tricks (some are not usually mentioned in tutorials) and only then I contribute to the project. Most of the times I get code review for free. This practice has also other positive effects.
Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
31–40 of 45 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#32I use the new language to write a non-trivial program (several thousands of lines) that I've written before several times, knowing all the algorithmic and design pitfalls so I can be certain that I need to learn the language's own tricks only.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#33I write a simple address book type app. Basically covers all CRUD operations and allows me to create a nice ui on top. Also handy to have demonstratable code to show your boss or a potential new gig.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#34I learned Go mostly by doing the Whispering Gophers tutorial over a couple small meetups: https://github.com/schmichael/whispering-gophers
There are lots of aspects of that learning experience that I think are worth repeating:
- social: we all had to figure out GOPATH together!
- playful: it's clearly a toy which means you have the freedom to explore, goof off, stretch yourself, and be creative
- comprehensive: it actually covered a ton of pertinent Go knowledge: goroutine, networking, interfaces, chans, select, etc
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#35IMHO, Hours reading a programming book > hours practicing, in term if knowledge gains.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#36Type in every line of code from whatever book (dont just read it)
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#37I had the same question when I wanted to learn C++. I was already quite practiced at Java and had written C and had read books on C++ off and on for years, but I still could not program in C++. So I got a copy of Stroustrup "The C++ Programming Language" and started to do his exercises, but the author clearly had never done them himself, some were quite long and tedious and did not teach me anything (never put exerci…
Would you please not use uppercase for emphasis on HN? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#38All the other answers I've read so far have been good, but do not explicitly mention a key factor that has helped me learn so much. Do your damndest to find a person more experienced with you in the language that can offer a code review after you create a mini-project or otherwise contributed to a codebase. I've learned alot on my own but having an objective person who understands the language better & can point out…
Do you know of any website doing this? Similar to language tandems where each person brings something to the table.
Yes, http://exercism.io/
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#39I do simple exercises by myself (pastebin clone, fib, file manipulation etc.)
I try to avoid example code snippets, since I want to figure it out myself.
Oftentimes when reading those examples everything seems to make sense, but when I'm faced with repeating what was shown I get stuck.
So now I avoid them completely and try to figure if out myself.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best way to learn a new programming language?
#40I force myself to read a book about it, from cover to cover; then I start using it. That gives me a helicopter survey of what the language looks like and its main ideas.
Of course I forget all the details, that's what books are for. It does seems more effective than just trying to map what I know from other languages into the new one.