21–30 of 41 posts
But I may be working on a device driver in the morning (C) and the prototyping some UI ideas in the afternoon (javascript).
Programming languages are just one subset of tools used by programmers. Therefore, simply counting how many languages one knows is simplistic. It's not incidental that high-rated CS curricula don't spent most of the courses teaching new programming languages. I know amazing polyglot programmers who just know 3-4 languages.
I believe mastering two languages with complementary strengths would be far preferable to just syntactically learning a bunch of languages.
Stated another way, I believe if someone can program at an expert level in one lisp, they probably don't need to insist on learning more of them.
If you progress to "merely adequate" in a smorgasbord of languages but all you can do is churn out CRUD apps but couldn't implement basic algorithms for a search engine you've plateaued.
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Most programming languages are essentially the same; skills are directly transferable and you just have to learn minor syntactic difference. I would think it would be much harder to master guitar just because one already mastered drums, or the other way around. Show me someone who has mastered computer graphics and say databases, then I'll be in awe.
I have to disagree, functional and object oriented languages produce very different solutions. Syntax is just the grammar. Compare e.g. Mandarin to a Latin based language and you will see what I mean. :) But indeed, mastering more areas is even more impressive.
We should clarify that knowing how to write a "Hello World" in a programming language does not make you "know" that programming language. In other words, how much should you know about a language to call yourself a polyglot?
Take the analogy from natural languages, and you're fluent in any language where you can write simple programs without consulting the documentation (or only minimal consultation), conversant in any language you can get real work done in, and speak broken language X if you know Hello World and not much more. A polyglot should be fluent in multiple languages, from at least a couple different families, and conversant in…
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I understand where you're coming from, but I strongly disagree. I've worked with multiple living counterexamples to your point - they only knew one language (sometimes old and non-maintained), but they could blow the next whiz-kid out of the water in terms of logical thinking and its application to software development. IMO the only requirement to being a "programmer" is "programming", and restricting it any way beyo…
I'm not even talking about the little languages that just come in and out of fashion all the time. If you know c++ you could basically roll right into C#, Java, PHP, etc in under a week and be doing real work in them. Maybe you wouldn't have the intricacies down immediately but you could be doing production code level work very quickly.
Learning a new language, say C++ -> Java is WAY more than just learning the syntax. There are best practices for solving certain kinds of problems in each language that differ between language.
Sure, there is a high level similarity between the solutions (hey, its just the observer pattern, right?), but there are also likely (IME) to be many critical differences in the details.
We should clarify that knowing how to write a "Hello World" in a programming language does not make you "know" that programming language. In other words, how much should you know about a language to call yourself a polyglot?
Just enough to change they way you think about programming. E.g., One need not be an expert programmer in Haskell to have learned the benefits of lazy evaluation or strong static typing.
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I am not saying you can't focus on a single language. But for example, if you know c# than you basically know java, and you basically also know php. You could easily pick up a pretty good understanding of these languages in under a week. If you know c++ you could basically roll right into any of those languages I named above in under a week as well. It is sort of difficult to do anything worth doing on the web unless…
I think you're conflating "knowing" a language with knowing the syntax of a language. It was an easy transition into C++ syntax from my usual C#/Java programming, but the transition into thinking like a C++ programmer was not a simple or easy one. Weeks (months?) later, I am still learning how to be a "good" C++ programmer. I remember "learning" PHP when I was younger and could probably program quite a few things wit…
Programming languages are just one subset of tools used by programmers. Therefore, simply counting how many languages one knows is simplistic. It's not incidental that high-rated CS curricula don't spent most of the courses teaching new programming languages. I know amazing polyglot programmers who just know 3-4 languages.
This read like a book report.