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Comment by NHQ | Hacker News Reader

This describes me pretty well. I'm a dedicated learner, and I think it's what I do best. I don't master topics. Even the information about the thing can be a distraction. It's about synthesizing info into your working knowledge. Everything is reference.

CSS is a great example. Do I know everything about it, even after 10 years? Nope. But I know it well enough that a quick reference is all I need for any problem.

Programming in general, too. Took me a minute to grok fundamental things (data types, functions, etc). I don't care what language I use, it's all one, plus syntax. I want to use other languages, for fun and synthesis.

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"The determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language." - Ed Post, Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal, 1982.

There is a hell of a lot more difference between the various programming languages than their syntax. Natural languages as well - you can render idiomatic English in any language, and if you don't care very much about getting your intended meaning across (and your listeners are both patient and fond of puzzles), you may well choose to do so. It may get you food and lodgings for the night. But the computing equivalent of getting by in a pidgin isn't quite the same thing as programming in the language you're using.

100% agreed. You can write C-style code in JavaScript, but it won't be idiomatic C and it won't be idiomatic js.

Syntax is a very minor piece of the programming language pie. If Python, Haskell, and Rust all shared the same syntax an expert Python programmer would still have a hell of a time getting anything done in either of the other two languages.

Discovering the differences between languages is all part of the learning process If you can start off with "this is how I would do it in C" and try that in JavaScript you'll speed up your learning by focusing on what features are unique/different in JavaScript. Ultimately they have more in common than they differ.

Eh... once you know a handful of languages, it's fairly easy to adjust to a new one. If I have experience in C++, C#, Ruby and Javascript, do you really think Java is going to blow my mind? Or I won't be able to write decent Python? I'm sure I'd pick up a few tricks and my code would get idiomatic but I am going to be 90% there from day one.

I'm pretty sure Erlang, Prolog and Forth would blow your mind.

Alternatively you can just grossly misuse them.

And C would blow his foot, like it does for everyone at some point ^^.

Or anything from the APL family such as APL itself, or the ASCII-only derivatives J and K.

Prolog blows my mind ever time I come back to it.

Yes, it's an amazing invention!

Are there a lot of Erlang, Prolog and Forth jobs, where you are?

Face it, we all pretty much use the same 10 or so languages in industry.

I'm working mostly in Erlang and from what I can tell there is quite some demand for Erlang and Elixir developers. Also there seems to be a lot of demand for Scala developers which while based on Java is not the same as those 10 languages. I've also used PostScript in a work context (which is stack based like Forth).

That's pretty cool. Erlang interests me, mainly because of what a amazing speaker the late great Joe Armstrong was. I don't really solve a lot of Erlang shaped problems right now, however.

My situation is this - people see my CV, see those languages, and immediately dismiss me for Java jobs. I think it's a short sighted decision, but it's the thinking that permeates the industry.

Ok, what was the last language you learned? Can you say you learned only 10% of it since the first day?

Javascript/Typescript, and yes, pretty much.

This are how you make objects, this are how you make functions, here's constants, here's variables. Use let instead of var for the scoping you're familiar with. Here's a standard library, it's a bit spartan but pretty much everything is familiar.

Later on I stopped using 'class' and 'this' and just used closures that return objects (I consider it more idiomatic, YMMV). I got a good feeling for when to use an object and when to use a Map.

I found out the fun way this trait often doesn't fly in interviews when they ask about your best quality.. Scuttled a phone interview with a hiring manager at Cloudflare real fast and he condescendingly chortled that "Everyone says that". Thought I did an okay job rescuing the interview after that but.. Wasn't feeling the dude anyway after that so I guess the feeling was mutual :)

I agree. But I feel the people / company that recognize and appreciate your broad skill set is the place you want to be. I struggled a bit on this myself.

It's their loss and it's a huge reward seeing their faces when you touch something that becomes a really good business after they declined ;-)

I also agree, but I'm a physician (an internist => generalist). As I grow in my career, I'm finding that when I encounter a new disease or procedure or treatment and go to read about it I learn an order of magnitude faster than when I was in medical school or maybe even residency. I'm amazed by it.

My retention is a bit better too, even if I don't see that new thing again for a long time, but not nearly what I wish it was... At least now I'll remember having seen it and a general sense of the concept even if I have to re look up the specifics.

I was like you for programming languages. Until I tried R. The data types just wouldn’t click for me. Sometimes it’s an array. Sometimes it’s not.

Dunning-Kruger effect?

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