On 2 March 2011 09:26, Moandji Ezana <[email protected]> wrote: > In the past few years, there's been a lot of emphasis on learning > programming languages, driven by the Pragmatic Programmer's "Learn a new > language every year" maxim and the JVM language boom. It does have a lot of > benefits, but I wonder if its importance hasn't been overestimated. > > Is there something about learning a language that is fundamentally more > mind-expanding than other things, such as: > > No difference, it's all part and parcel of the same thing - expanding your mental toolbox. Let's see how you might go about some of these challenges:
*moving from server to client:* - JavaScript (a browser is a client, right?) - Tcl/Tk *asynchronous/messaging architectures:* This is painful to learn in any language without lambdas/function objects. If you need to do this in Java then the SAM types will bite you. Learn in a more suitable language first and backport your knowledge. - Erlang - Akka (Scala) *usability/UX/design:* Java/Swing overwhelms with boilerplate, making it hard to concentrate on the essentials. Try something designed for design. - JavaFX script is sadly dead now. Flex perhaps? - HTML - OpenGL :) *learning about NoSQL/Big Data architectures:* As with SQL, the APIs for these stores are typically declarative - so you first want to break out of the imparative programming mindset. Not so easy to do if all you know is Java. - Hadoop/Pig - Akka (Scala) - SQL (many NoSQL examples and tutorials will refer to the SQL equivalent) - Any general purpose functional language (Scala, Haskell, IO, Clojure, Erlang, F#, etc.) Not only is it normal to learn new paradigms alongside new languages, I'm thinking it's actually very unusual to learn just a language in isolation. - ... > > ? > > Moandji > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > -- Kevin Wright gtalk / msn : [email protected] <[email protected]>mail: [email protected] vibe / skype: kev.lee.wright quora: http://www.quora.com/Kevin-Wright twitter: @thecoda "My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent": the current conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger" ~ Dijkstra -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
