Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
1–10 of 68 posts
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#2That is definitly much better than being siloed in just one language.
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#3I'd say it's not just learning multiple languages that is valuable, but learning languages with different paradigms. If you learn 5 different object-oriented languages, you'll mostly get exposed to different OOP concepts. If you learn an OOP language, a Procedural language, a Functional language, a declarative Logic language (Prolog, SQL, etc), and maybe something else you'll have a much broader set of ways to think about solving problems.
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#4A couple of drawbacks I never see mentioned in these discussions:
* When you know more languages and you are faced with problems whose solutions are trivial to express in one of them, but you are forced to use another it is extremely frustrating.
* Trying to use a particular style/paradigm from a language in another one will raise a lot of eyebrows followed by "this is terrible code".
So to me, learning more languages just leads to frustration. I can't use them at work. I can't even use their style.
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#5So since my early days I've been doing multiple languages, started in Java at school then picked up JavaScript and Ruby pretty quickly, as well as being a bash Unix cli afficiando, since then my list of languages numbers in the double digits.
One of the things I am always astounded by is developers that only know one language, having multiple languages has changed the way I understand programming in general. At that point when I approach a problem I start by reasoning what the appropriate paradiagm or approach is to solve the problem and then decide the language from that. At this point when I see requirements that list X years in specific language I am confused as to why people don't just want programmers since languages seem so easy to pickup.
Their is a dark side to this I will admit though I do struggle a little bit more approaching a new language and then trying to find ways around concepts that I feel should be there, or I struggle sometimes to deal with language specific details.
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#6> The younger generation is also familiar with the “memento Ruby” argument. “The decision to learn a new language is about career planning and risk diversification. Just look at Ruby,” Michał says.
It's funny, while community interest in Ruby peaked around 2012, industry adoption and usage of Ruby at startups and in enterprise is higher right now than it ever was, so this whole "remember Ruby" trope is such a farce.
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#7A couple of drawbacks I never see mentioned in these discussions: * When you know more languages and you are faced with problems whose solutions are trivial to express in one of them, but you are forced to use another it is extremely frustrating. * Trying to use a particular style/paradigm from a language in another one will raise a lot of eyebrows followed by "this is terrible code". So to me, learning more language…
I've found the opposite to be true. Knowing how I would solve a problem in more than one language has made a number of things easier over the years. Heck, if you look at Symfony's (a php framework) Validation API https://symfony.com/doc/current/validation.html they are implementing a Java JSR ( https://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=303 ) using PHP constructs.
Ideas can cross pollinate between languages, but not everything translates well.
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#8So since my early days I've been doing multiple languages, started in Java at school then picked up JavaScript and Ruby pretty quickly, as well as being a bash Unix cli afficiando, since then my list of languages numbers in the double digits. One of the things I am always astounded by is developers that only know one language, having multiple languages has changed the way I understand programming in general. At that…
since languages seem so easy to pickup.
What takes time is being productive with the APIs and ecosystem, not learning the language.
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#9So since my early days I've been doing multiple languages, started in Java at school then picked up JavaScript and Ruby pretty quickly, as well as being a bash Unix cli afficiando, since then my list of languages numbers in the double digits. One of the things I am always astounded by is developers that only know one language, having multiple languages has changed the way I understand programming in general. At that…
since languages seem so easy to pickup. What takes time is being productive with the APIs and ecosystem, not learning the language.
+1000
Re: Polyglot programming and the benefits of mastering several languages
#10I've learned a number of languages, in my 35+ years of programming, but I generally only work with one or two at a time.
The last few years, it has been Swift (frontend), and PHP (backend).