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Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

thorstenball.com

21–30 of 319 posts

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#21
post #7

I’m getting tired of this. Yes I see the benefit of knowing multiple languages but let’s look at the other side of that coin. There’s the dev that is familiar with a dozen languages and writes terrible code in all of them. When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Nights and weekends that effectively has you working 24/7? Or more likely some developer that has a personal relationship with the C…

I can tell you've worked for at least one startup. Par for the course.

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#22
post #7

I’m getting tired of this. Yes I see the benefit of knowing multiple languages but let’s look at the other side of that coin. There’s the dev that is familiar with a dozen languages and writes terrible code in all of them. When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Nights and weekends that effectively has you working 24/7? Or more likely some developer that has a personal relationship with the C…

>When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Some argue that as a professional, you should be spending time outside of work learning to improve your career. You can't expect your employer to give you time to learn. I find it can be difficult though, especially when you want to spend your time outside of work on other things like family and hobbies.

I absolutely expect my employer to give me paid time to learn, and only work for those that do.

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#23
post #7

I’m getting tired of this. Yes I see the benefit of knowing multiple languages but let’s look at the other side of that coin. There’s the dev that is familiar with a dozen languages and writes terrible code in all of them. When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Nights and weekends that effectively has you working 24/7? Or more likely some developer that has a personal relationship with the C…

>When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Some argue that as a professional, you should be spending time outside of work learning to improve your career. You can't expect your employer to give you time to learn. I find it can be difficult though, especially when you want to spend your time outside of work on other things like family and hobbies.

I didn’t say you shouldn’t spend personal time on those things but you should expect to be compensated one way or another for it. It’s interesting how people in IT separate their skills from their compensation. If my lawyer or doctor is working weekends I guarantee one way or another they are making damn sure they’re getting compensated for it.

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#24
I feel the highest good I get out of playing with alternatives is that I hit a higher rate of "hits" on picking up on things previously invisible to me.

Playing with a different editor gives me ideas for different workflows and shortcuts which my main editor already supports. Playing with a different programming language shows me how powerful X is which I never touched in my main programming language.

The focus on learning and exploring an alternative is more powerful for me than mastering that alternative. I get the greatest benefit with a relatively smaller investment that way.

Maybe instead of learning more programming languages, just pick small bits of something to explore.

This might make for an interesting app (which won't make money.) Create a sort of "useless but interesting facts" type of app for programmers. Allow people to submit "cards" with something on it and then up/down vote on the card. The snippet could be a term, clever code, or anything bite size. The programming equivalent of "how to say ck in Klingon."

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#25
post #7

I’m getting tired of this. Yes I see the benefit of knowing multiple languages but let’s look at the other side of that coin. There’s the dev that is familiar with a dozen languages and writes terrible code in all of them. When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Nights and weekends that effectively has you working 24/7? Or more likely some developer that has a personal relationship with the C…

Jesus Christ, man, I think that team was going to fail anyway. That's super dysfunctional and the languages thing seems like a very small deal.

Are you under the impression that IT isn’t super disfunctional right now? Yes, the language thing is a symptom not the problem.

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#27
post #9
post #7

I’m getting tired of this. Yes I see the benefit of knowing multiple languages but let’s look at the other side of that coin. There’s the dev that is familiar with a dozen languages and writes terrible code in all of them. When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Nights and weekends that effectively has you working 24/7? Or more likely some developer that has a personal relationship with the C…

I've learned to code methods in OO languages without using loops after I've learned Erlang. No loops means less bugs.

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm but if it isn’t it just proves the point. Your teammates must just love working with you. I’d love to see the look on their faces when you committed that code. “I just learned Erlang. Check out what I did without telling anyone. Suck it. Boom!”

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#28
post #7

I’m getting tired of this. Yes I see the benefit of knowing multiple languages but let’s look at the other side of that coin. There’s the dev that is familiar with a dozen languages and writes terrible code in all of them. When exactly are we supposed to be learning all these languages? Nights and weekends that effectively has you working 24/7? Or more likely some developer that has a personal relationship with the C…

But this is also to do that many people do not see developing software as a career; more something they happen to be ok at and it makes a bucket load of money. If it's a career, like I decided to make of it when I was 16, you can be an actual senior in a number of languages. I feel equally secure writing large codebases/projects in quite a substantial number of languages after 30 years of learning different languages…

Ahh the developer who drops how young they were when they started programming. I love this one.

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#29
My suggestion is Objective-C. It's just so weird to anyone who's never coded in it, that it will force you out of your comfort zone into new ways of thinking. The NS framework is probably the most well designed stdlib of any language ever, and the whole thing is inspired directly from Smalltalk. Protocol Oriented Programming [0] was also a real revelation for me, and I still apply those concepts anywhere I can. It's also a great introduction to lower level concepts like pointers and memory management that is a lot more forgiving than C/C++.

[0] https://www.sicpers.info/2015/06/protocol-oriented-programmi...

Re: Learn more programming languages, even if you won't use them

#30
At this point I have almost 20 languages that I've used for at least two years, which is what I consider an decent bar for "knowing" a language.

The problem I now have is that I don't know if I'll ever be able to master any language anymore. Mmmmaybe C, since I've used that fairly consistently, albeit on-and-off for 25 years.

But whenever I get to an "if" or "for" or function declaration, I often have to look at an example real quick because I have too many fighting memories: is it "if () then {}" or "if then:" and is it "else if" or "elif"? Do I need parens around the clauses? Is it "&&" or "and"?

Mostly I've found that the difference between two languages isn't the difference between two cheeseburgers, but rather the difference between a cheeseburger and lasagna. There's absolutely personal preferences (I still despise Python's whitespace-as-scope, even though I love the language), but they all get your belly full.

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