The process of learning a musical instrument isn't too different from learning how to program. As a long time musician, I heard the quote a long time ago and it

The process of learning a musical instrument isn't too different from learning how to program. As a long time musician, I heard the quote a long time ago and it comes to mind frequently. Taking part in a programming community like those surrounding more academic languages such as Scala, Haskell or J is a challenge a lot like playing in a jazz band with music majors and 60 year old musicians with amazing grace. That's the wonderful thing about being online - you can interact with a nearly limitless variety of social circles. There's always someone with inspiring talent, skills, ideas or enthusiasm to inspire you. That's one of the reasons HN is so good - this community challenges members to make contributions which are intellectually substantive, unlike Reddit, TechCrunch or other superficially similar sites.