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Actually: no. I don't get the reasoning behind this. If there should be some languages everyone should atleast now, it would be one of each of these categories

by buster 16y ago

Actually: no. I don't get the reasoning behind this. If there should be some languages everyone should atleast now, it would be one of each of these categories: hardware (asm or atleast some basic knowledge of how the thing works you program for) low-level (C, good base for procedural programming) high-level (java, good base for object oriented programming) script (.pl, .py, lua, etc.) Somewhere in between there may be a functional languague (erlang, lisp, haskell, etc.) but i, myself, never needed one. What really came handy overall is to know some basic stuff (assembler) for insight in how stuff works, plus C knowledge because the tools, libraries and languages you use are likely based on C. Plus Java, because it's almost everywhere and some script language to get things done ;)

vilya 16y ago
Even if you never use it in directly, knowing a functional language can give you a new way of thinking about how you structure your code in procedural or OO languages. That can sometimes lead to more elegant code. Apart from that detail I agree with you.
- buster 16y ago
  Yes, i guess so. It's on my list of things to learn.
loewenskind 16y ago
>but i, myself, never needed one Blub. How could you possible know that you need something you don't know about?
- buster 16y ago
  I meant, that in no project, i have been involved in, a functional programming language was used, thus i didn't _need_ to learn one. I will probably just to broaden my horizon. I also know that i don't need to learn brainfuck, just don't ask me how i know that ;)
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    > meant, that in no project, i have been involved in, a functional programming language was used, thus i didn't _need_ to learn one. Ah, fair point. >I also know that i don't need to learn brainfuck, just don't ask me how i know that Well, objectively, what would BF teach you? What is it, a stack language? Then Factor or something would be a better place to start. I don't know enough about the language but I'm sure it's the lowest category of whatever category it resides in.
    - buster 16y ago
      Brainfuck is generally considered an esoteric programming language and by the definition of Wikipedia esoteric programming languages are not meant to be used for " real-world programming" and are even only written as a "joke". To learn stack based programming one should look at assembler in my opinion, which i already mentioned. The point was that i don't have to learn something only to learn that i didn't need to learn it in the first place.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        >The point was that i don't have to learn something only to learn that i didn't need to learn it in the first place. I was looking at more from the point of view of being a large hole in your knowledge base, and one that's likely to get really important soon. I know when I learned my first functional language, Ocaml, it was a really mind bending experience. It took me about a week to finally "get it", where as normally languages are so similar that a couple of hours is easily enough to grasp all the concepts, the rest of time is just getting faster.
        silentbicycle 16y ago
        With many common languages, "learning" the language has more to do with learning APIs and minor syntactic quirks. You'll learn more if you chase after languages with very different models of computation. Languages I've found particularly mind-blowing: Perl (esp. coming from C++), Scheme, OCaml, Prolog, Erlang, J / APL.

by buster 16y ago

vilya 16y ago

Even if you never use it in directly, knowing a functional language can give you a new way of thinking about how you structure your code in procedural or OO languages. That can sometimes lead to more elegant code. Apart from that detail I agree with you.

buster 16y ago
Yes, i guess so. It's on my list of things to learn.

loewenskind 16y ago

>but i, myself, never needed one Blub. How could you possible know that you need something you don't know about?

buster 16y ago
I meant, that in no project, i have been involved in, a functional programming language was used, thus i didn't _need_ to learn one. I will probably just to broaden my horizon. I also know that i don't need to learn brainfuck, just don't ask me how i know that ;)
- loewenskind 16y ago
  > meant, that in no project, i have been involved in, a functional programming language was used, thus i didn't _need_ to learn one. Ah, fair point. >I also know that i don't need to learn brainfuck, just don't ask me how i know that Well, objectively, what would BF teach you? What is it, a stack language? Then Factor or something would be a better place to start. I don't know enough about the language but I'm sure it's the lowest category of whatever category it resides in.
  - buster 16y ago
    Brainfuck is generally considered an esoteric programming language and by the definition of Wikipedia esoteric programming languages are not meant to be used for " real-world programming" and are even only written as a "joke". To learn stack based programming one should look at assembler in my opinion, which i already mentioned. The point was that i don't have to learn something only to learn that i didn't need to learn it in the first place.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      >The point was that i don't have to learn something only to learn that i didn't need to learn it in the first place. I was looking at more from the point of view of being a large hole in your knowledge base, and one that's likely to get really important soon. I know when I learned my first functional language, Ocaml, it was a really mind bending experience. It took me about a week to finally "get it", where as normally languages are so similar that a couple of hours is easily enough to grasp all the concepts, the rest of time is just getting faster.
      - silentbicycle 16y ago
        With many common languages, "learning" the language has more to do with learning APIs and minor syntactic quirks. You'll learn more if you chase after languages with very different models of computation. Languages I've found particularly mind-blowing: Perl (esp. coming from C++), Scheme, OCaml, Prolog, Erlang, J / APL.