Comment by Irregardless | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Irregardless | Hacker News Reader

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  What would I recommend learning? 
      - C
      - Prolog
      - Erlang (I'm biased)
      - Smalltalk
      - Javascript
      - Hakell / ML /OCaml
      - LISP/Scheme/Clojure 
  A couple of years should be enough (PER LANGUAGE).

A 'beginner' should start by spending 14 years (minimum) learning 7 languages? I was starting to agree with him when he mentioned the paradox of choice that programming beginners face today, but that recommendation is beyond ignorant.

Becoming a veteran polyglot is not the only way to break into the programming field. This is exactly the type of elitist BS that we don't need -- scaring beginners away by giving the impression that they face an insurmountable cliff from the start.

Should we also mention that they need a minimum of 3 master's and 2 doctorate degrees? I don't think I've heard of a single successful programmer with anything less. Surely no one has ever dropped out of college and acquired vast amounts of wealth at an early age by programming.

This is a general problem with asking masters in some discipline about the best way to learn - they almost always tend to recommend simply doing what they did, but they do not say "I did x, y and z", but "x, y and z are the best way to learn" and what is worse some people actually take those recommendations seriously.

The problem with this is twofold: first, the times are always changing and yesterdays path is seldom adequate today anymore and second, progress is made by the younger generations not having to repeat the mistakes of the older ones. So, if you want good recommendations for learning, ask the people who actually teach others on a daily basis. I think 2-3 good courses in programming languages can compress a lot of the knowledge you would gain following this recommendation in a much shorter period - "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", "Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming" and "Programming Language Pragmatics" are three excellent textbooks that go in this direction.

But then, if you strive for mastery, and I think that's what Dr. Joe Armstrong is interested in, it is nothing exceptional to spent 15 years learning.

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