Learning Languages 4:09 AM, Feb 3rd
As a programmer, one of the things I enjoy the most is the structure of languages - how inherently different styling can mould the experience I have when learning it. As an offshoot of this, I've slowly become interested in different programming languages and how they can be used in everyday life.
A prime example of this is Python, a language I spent some time with in order to compete in the NCSS Challenge in 2007 (something I advise all budding programmers take part in - I wish I'd discovered it earlier). Or even the language I'm currently reading about, Erlang - my first attempt at learning a functional programming language - one I must say has opened my mind up to an alternate way of programming.
Over the next year, I plan on not only spending my time focusing on working on some projects - both as a job and as a hobby - as well as learning several new languages.
The first set are ones my courses at UWA (First Year, hell yeh!) are apparently going to cover - First off, we have Haskell, a language I've wanted to learn for a while but have never really had a reason to until now. Following up from that there's a language I'm not looking forward to but I'm willing to learn - there is Java. Hey, maybe it'll give a push to finally learn Groovy or even Scala. Finally, second semester will introduce the one language I've been meaning to learn and that is considered a prerequisite for a lot of 'serious development' - Good ol' C. Sound's like a lot to cram into one year but the brain-workout it brings with it will surely be worth it.
Of course, with all of those languages, there a still a fair few I'd love to learn - mainly spurned by the cool links that always seem to show up on the programming subreddit. I've wanted to learn a lisp dialect for a long time (CL seems to be winning out over Scheme due to the huge amount of web development stuff available) as well as wanting to spend some time with Arc - a new dialect that Paul Graham's been pimping for a while now (although my initial look was disappointing to say the least). There is also the inherent coolness of io and Factor and Smalltalk - of which my initial looks at and my wider reading about - have made them seem pretty impressive. So how about you? what languages would you like to learn?