Re: learning languages [Was: Re: Y Store now C++]

[Ken Anderson <address@hidden>]

At 04:27 PM 3/14/2003 -0500, Seth Gordon wrote:
>Also, among the IT shops that *are* using non-standard languages, how
>many of them are hiring programmers and expecting them to learn the
>language on the job?  I see there are job opportunities out there for
>Common Lisp gurus who know how to take advantage of the full power of
>the language, but what's there for Common Lisp newbies who are about as
>unproductive in Lisp as in Java or Perl? 

The AMP project (originally called DART) has been in Lisp for 13 years, and has been moving to Java slowly.  The plan is to be all Java (with scripting languages for debugging) by November.  When we brought in new programmers to learn Lisp it would take about 3 weeks before they learned enough of Lisp, the application and its jargon to actually check in changes to code.  I remember being suprised several times about how quickly this transition happened.  I think Paul Graham's Common Lisp book helped this process.