Re: strategies for learning new languages

[Michael Vanier <address@hidden>]

I second this, and I'd add that I look for smallish (< 1000 line)
mini-projects that are good candidates for the language, and then I do the
miniproject.  Until you've actually written at least several hundred lines
of code in a language you effectively know nothing about it.

Mike

> From: Michael Schuerig <schuerig@acm.org>
> Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 00:39:16 +0100
> 
> On Wednesday 26 March 2003 23:58, Vadim Nasardinov wrote:
> > To follow up on the "learning languages" thread
> > (http://www.ai.mit.edu/~gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-html/threads.html#0
> >2557), I'd be interested to hear resident polyglots comment on the
> > following question.
> >
> >   What strategies do you use for becoming proficient in a new
> >   language?
> 
> Find a problem that can be better solved in the new language than in the 
> ones I already know.
> 
> This strategy worked very well for me when I learned Ruby three years 
> ago. Ruby became my scripting language of choice. I learned Haskell a 
> year ago (and forgot most of it again), although I didn't have a 
> problem at hand. Currently, I'm stumbling around with Common Lisp and 
> have no clear idea what to do with it. I hope it works out for O'Caml 
> and Mozart some time in the future.
> 
> Michael
> 
> -- 
> Michael Schuerig                 Nothing is as brilliantly adaptive
> mailto:schuerig@acm.org          as selective stupidity.
> http://www.schuerig.de/michael/  --A.O. Rorty, "The Deceptive Self"
>