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Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
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Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#32I spent the last year doing lisp as much as I could, and I've become a right convert. I've got some C and python down already. This year, I am currently torn between: -Haskell (to go full blown functional crazy) -Smalltalk (to go full blown object crazy) -Javascript (to finally write some stuff for the web/browsers) - Java (to sell out and lose the will to live?) Any advice is more than welcome. I'm probably looking…
You have Lisp knowledge, so maybe Haskell is not the best candidate for "a new way you think". Given your background I would say you probably would enjoy Scala more than Java (targeting the same JVM). I am not sure if one can learn enough from Smalltalk to justify the effort it takes to learn an in-practice useless language. If you don't speak JavaScript yet, that's a good candidate, especially if you use your FP experience in it and not just go the OO way most people do.
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#33Ruby, iOS
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#34Objective-C. Overdue.
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#35I spent the last year doing lisp as much as I could, and I've become a right convert. I've got some C and python down already. This year, I am currently torn between: -Haskell (to go full blown functional crazy) -Smalltalk (to go full blown object crazy) -Javascript (to finally write some stuff for the web/browsers) - Java (to sell out and lose the will to live?) Any advice is more than welcome. I'm probably looking…
You have Lisp knowledge, so maybe Haskell is not the best candidate for "a new way you think". Given your background I would say you probably would enjoy Scala more than Java (targeting the same JVM). I am not sure if one can learn enough from Smalltalk to justify the effort it takes to learn an in-practice useless language. If you don't speak JavaScript yet, that's a good candidate, especially if you use your FP exp…
No, Haskell is very different from Lisp. It makes perfectly sense to learn Haskell.
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have Lisp knowledge, so maybe Haskell is not the best candidate for "a new way you think". Given your background I would say you probably would enjoy Scala more than Java (targeting the same JVM). I am not sure if one can learn enough from Smalltalk to justify the effort it takes to learn an in-practice useless language. If you don't speak JavaScript yet, that's a good candidate, especially if you use your FP exp…
No, Haskell is very different from Lisp. It makes perfectly sense to learn Haskell.
You have more experience here thanks for correcting me :) What I meant was that they are not two very different worlds. I myself picked Haskell over Lisp hoping to gain the benefits that I would get from Lisp but with some advantages.
Would you also recommend the other way around? Learning Lisp after Haskell? I don't mean the syntactical differences or the real-world usage. Solely the "way of thinking".
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, Haskell is very different from Lisp. It makes perfectly sense to learn Haskell.
You have more experience here thanks for correcting me :) What I meant was that they are not two very different worlds. I myself picked Haskell over Lisp hoping to gain the benefits that I would get from Lisp but with some advantages. Would you also recommend the other way around? Learning Lisp after Haskell? I don't mean the syntactical differences or the real-world usage. Solely the "way of thinking".
Actually Haskell and Lisp a very two different worlds. Some basic abstractions are shared, but Functional Programming tends to be much much more advanced in Haskell. Haskell is the standard language for some branch of functional programming and has a good/great eco-system for that. It's main use seems to me to advance the state of art in Functional Programming and applications of it.
Lisp OTOH is a multi-paradigm languages with much more emphasis on OO and interactive development. Lisp is much more diverse and favors a very different programming style - slightly more pragmatic. Lisp had its main application domain in AI, but nowadays it's a bit more diverse - often it is used by individuals or small teams. One of the larger applications is the flight search engine of Google. Others are in music composition, planning and scheduling (satellites, people, logistics, ...), etc.
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#38I learned Dart and TypeScript this year and both were fairly trivial to learn and use. The learning process improved my JavaScript skills because I had to think about JavaScript in new ways and got me ready for ES6 (For example, the discussions about iterators in Dart and ES6 was interesting.) Next up is ClojureScript, if I can get over the syntax.
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#39There was a recent comment by tptacek in another thread which I agree with: you really only need to know a couple of programming languages before you start hitting diminishing returns in terms of what you can implement. We should focus instead on learning new concepts or new problem domains. I'm trying to revisit statistical modelling and pick up some machine learning basics over the next year.
and what about domains only tangentially related to computer science, like robotics, semiconductors, or digital music? or what about domains barely related to computer science, but where coding is an invaluable skill, like medicine/genetics, manufacturing, or aerospace? consider how many programming languages your average person knows (zero). now consider how many you know. is it objectively worth your time optimizin…
> would you rather have a carpenter who knows how to use a dozen hammers, or a wide variety of tools?
There's a danger in what you're suggesting, in overgeneralizing and never learning too much about one topic. Would you rather have a carpenter who's an okay carpenter, an okay musician, an okay actor, and an okay racecar driver, or a carpenter who's really good at carpenting?
Re: Ask HN: What programming language will you learn in 2014?
#40If you're learning Haskell, be prepared to feel like a beginner for a while.
I had great learning it. I usually pick up languages fairly quickly, but Haskell eluded me for more months than I'd care to admit. There is a great community of very smart and friendly people who helped me on IRC, and a couple of pretty good books -- http://learnyouahaskell.com/ and http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh/book.html.
I enjoyed the experience, and I certainly feel like a better programmer for it. But damn I felt daft for a few months!