On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 8:49 AM, Michael Bullman <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sorry if this was a long winded question, but basically, what do I need to > know before I can start learning to use Julia? > > You already know enough to start learning. I recommend a change in perspective, from "what do I need to know?" to "what should I do?" - think of Julia as a practical skill to be mastered rather than a body of abstract knowledge. The way to learn it is to do it, just like the way to learn chess is by playing it. In my experience the most efficient way to proceed in mastering a new language (or a library) is to start by mastering the use of a unit testing framework, which is usually pretty simple. Then you can write very focused unit tests to explore manageable bits of the language or library - what happens if I flip this switch or twiddle that knob? - without having to deal with the added complexity of application design. You can learn a lot just by trying to break simple things and seeing what happens. It's even fun (sometimes) to try to break stuff- even if you can't break the code you can sometimes break the documentation (so to speak). HTH Gregg
