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

Post by orangeshark » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #22

orangeshark wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

wincy wrote: post #60

CuriouslyC wrote: post #39

Frankly I've never understood the desire to be a polyglot. The time spent learning new syntax and a new standard library could have been spent learning libraries, algorithms, data structures, etc, so I don't think it's the most productive way to improve yourself as a programmer. I'm more interested in learning a new language because it lets me do something I couldn't do before.

I only got my current job because I happened to be reading a book on C#, which is strange because we barely code in C#. I spent several years programming in Elixir which got blank stares from recruiters. But saying I know Elixir and C# actually got me a pretty good gig! In an ideal world, knowing data structures and algorithms would get job interviews, but without being able to at least speak to some specifics of the…

Post by usgroup » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

schwurb wrote: post #61

gdy wrote: post #16

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"Here are the languages and DSLs that ended up in the mix: cron, Makefile, bash, sed, regex, jq query, python, R, sql, nginx conf" And also anyone who could replace you will have to know all these languages. Nice approach to job security.

> cron, Makefile, bash, sed For a programmer with a minimal amount of linux experience, it likely takes a week to catch up to what the codebase is doing with these. > regex There are good tools to destructure regex. > python sql jq query I consider those as "given" or "learnable good enough in a week" > nginx conf Don't know this. Overall, "knowing all these languages" seems overblown in the choice of words for me. J…

Post by hk__2 » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

deboflo wrote: post #62

deboflo wrote: post #56

I learned many languages for years and I received a poor return on time investment. Later, I started learning AWS in depth and studying for certs. I now know way more than I previously did about networking, envelope encryption, messaging, infrastructure as code, pipelines, caching, CDN’s, networking protocols, load balancers, dns, and designing highly available and scalable systems. In summary, don’t forgo learning a…

Learn shell, a scripting language like Python, and a systems language like Java, C, Rust, Go, etc. I think that’s all you need to know as a backend or systems/DevOps Engineer.

Post by wwweston » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 3:05 PM UTC

gnclmorais wrote: post #66

dajohnson89 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm this way with foreign languages: Spanish and french. I know french very well, and learning/speaking Spanish is significantly harder because I'm always using french words by mistake. sure it'll get better with practice, but interlingual dyslexia is real.

Interesting, I feel like I have the opposite issue. Coming from Portuguese, learning Spanish was a breeze and I can usually surprise French speaking people with “hard” words in my basic French sentences — just because I reached out to a Portuguese word and “frenchyfied” it.