[Courses] [python] Googling isn't cheating :-)

[Dianne]

On Fri, 8 Jul 2011, Akkana Peck wrote:
>
> Agreed there, too. Most programmers know lots of languages. They're
> similar enough that once you know one, picking up another one isn't
> a big deal.

Mmm. I partially agree, partially disagree. Many of the languages
that are popular today are based on C (C++, Java, PHP, Javascript
etc.) But even if you're fluent in all of those you'll still probably
find it hard going if/when you switch to a language that is based
on a totally different paradigm such as XSLT, Prolog, DDL or assembly.
If all your experience is in strongly-typed languages, learning a
loosely-typed one may drive you nuts. And so on.

That's just something to keep in mind (based on my own experience).
I may have only dabbled in Scheme and Prolog in school, but having
done so made it much easier to acquire XSLT when I ran into it in
the workplace. But I still struggle with Javascript - even after
years of struggling with it I still don't grok its (IMHO) funky
event model.

> But they're different enough that you won't remember all
> the details of every language. I'm forever forgetting whether a
> languages uses else if or elsif or elif, or whether I need to use
> len(l) or l.len or l.length().  And as you say, that can happen even
> in languages you're quite fluent in, if you've been working in a
> different language for a few months.

Definitely agree with this.

Dianne