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I once told a JavaScript guru colleague of mine that I was spending my free time dabbling in Haskell. His response was 'lol, why would you do that?'. His point

I once told a JavaScript guru colleague of mine that I was spending my free time dabbling in Haskell. His response was 'lol, why would you do that?'. His point was that spending time learning things that you're not going to be using directly any time soon is a waste of time. My point was (and still is), that learning such things opens up a completely new way of thinking about problems and potential solutions.

quickthrower2 6y ago
Does he use Redux by any chance :-)
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Oh, not popular. To clarify the joke being Redux was inspired by Functional Programming.
loup-vaillant 6y ago
"Never learn anything you don't see immediate use of". Such short term thinking could explain why dynamic typing is so appealing: simpler implementations, more possibilities than most mainstream static type systems, while requiring basically no learning at all.
wccrawford 6y ago
My experience matches yours. Every time I learned a new language, I gained a new understanding of a different way of doing things, and I was able to bring some of that understanding to my daily job's language. It's absolutely made me a better programmer. I didn't just study those languages for nothing, though. I always had a purpose in mind for them, with the possible exception of Ruby which just seemed neat.
mumblemumble 6y ago
Limiting what you learn is, by definition, self-limiting. On the one hand, that's a useless truism - we can't learn everything, so you do have to pick and choose. On the other hand, I still find the framing useful, because it reminds me that, in a sense, the decisions about what not to learn are more impactful. To the example of programming languages: Only focusing on perfecting my skills at the tools I currently use would leave me less able to understand the limitations of the tools I currently use. And would limit my ability to take my career in new paths where I might have a need to use other tools. On the other hand, learning every single new thing might distract me from properly mastering my current tools, or might eat up so much of my free time that I'm effectively spending all my time thinking about work and never recharging my batteries.
mattgreenrocks 6y ago
Anti-intellectualism in programming is fascinating to me. The variance in skill between individual programmers is immense, and languages act as force multipliers on that. There are huge opportunities that emerge from pushing yourself to explore new paradigms and domains.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  > There are huge opportunities that emerge from pushing yourself to explore new paradigms and domains. What are those opportunities? As a Rubyist, to me it makes more sense to become really good in Ruby. As I get older and more expensive, I need to be better than the 3 year experience 26 year old colleague. And if not better at least not noticeably worse. Learning Elixir, Go, Haskell or you name it isn't gonna help me. Not in intellectual terms and not in practical terms. Also there are so many other worthy things a person can do with his time other than learning a new programming language (both within programming and outside programming), we shouldn't judge people by their passion or lack of passion for learning new languages.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    I won't speak to opportunities; I agree with you that there's a lot to be said for specialization. But, to the point about getting older: There's a fair amount of evidence that learning new, challenging (as in, outside your comfort zone) things is a big part of maintaining your mental acuity as you age. Doing crosswords is good for your brain, but only if you're relatively new to them. If you've been an avid crossword puzzler for decades, not so much. Learning a new natural language is another example of something that is supposedly good for keeping the creative juices flowing. I wouldn't be surprised if challenging oneself with a new programming paradigm behaves similarly. Which would mean that learning Haskell might make you a better Rubyist, not because (as people often like to say) Haskell teaches you specific things that you can't learn while using Ruby, but because the mental challenge of learning to work with such a drastically different programming language just generally helps keep you sharp. That said, I would not go so far as to speculate that this effect is any greater for learning a programming language than it is for learning Esperanto. Just pick the one that sounds more fun.
codygman 6y ago
> I was spending my free time dabbling in Haskell. His response was 'lol, why would you do that?'. His point was that spending time learning things that you're not going to be using directly any time soon is a waste of time. Just as an anecdote, if you are persistent enough you can learn Haskell and get a job writing it :)

quickthrower2 6y ago

Does he use Redux by any chance :-)

quickthrower2 6y ago
Oh, not popular. To clarify the joke being Redux was inspired by Functional Programming.

loup-vaillant 6y ago

"Never learn anything you don't see immediate use of". Such short term thinking could explain why dynamic typing is so appealing: simpler implementations, more possibilities than most mainstream static type systems, while requiring basically no learning at all.

wccrawford 6y ago

My experience matches yours. Every time I learned a new language, I gained a new understanding of a different way of doing things, and I was able to bring some of that understanding to my daily job's language. It's absolutely made me a better programmer. I didn't just study those languages for nothing, though. I always had a purpose in mind for them, with the possible exception of Ruby which just seemed neat.

mumblemumble 6y ago

Limiting what you learn is, by definition, self-limiting. On the one hand, that's a useless truism - we can't learn everything, so you do have to pick and choose. On the other hand, I still find the framing useful, because it reminds me that, in a sense, the decisions about what not to learn are more impactful. To the example of programming languages: Only focusing on perfecting my skills at the tools I currently use would leave me less able to understand the limitations of the tools I currently use. And would limit my ability to take my career in new paths where I might have a need to use other tools. On the other hand, learning every single new thing might distract me from properly mastering my current tools, or might eat up so much of my free time that I'm effectively spending all my time thinking about work and never recharging my batteries.

mattgreenrocks 6y ago

Anti-intellectualism in programming is fascinating to me. The variance in skill between individual programmers is immense, and languages act as force multipliers on that. There are huge opportunities that emerge from pushing yourself to explore new paradigms and domains.

joelbluminator 6y ago
> There are huge opportunities that emerge from pushing yourself to explore new paradigms and domains. What are those opportunities? As a Rubyist, to me it makes more sense to become really good in Ruby. As I get older and more expensive, I need to be better than the 3 year experience 26 year old colleague. And if not better at least not noticeably worse. Learning Elixir, Go, Haskell or you name it isn't gonna help me. Not in intellectual terms and not in practical terms. Also there are so many other worthy things a person can do with his time other than learning a new programming language (both within programming and outside programming), we shouldn't judge people by their passion or lack of passion for learning new languages.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  I won't speak to opportunities; I agree with you that there's a lot to be said for specialization. But, to the point about getting older: There's a fair amount of evidence that learning new, challenging (as in, outside your comfort zone) things is a big part of maintaining your mental acuity as you age. Doing crosswords is good for your brain, but only if you're relatively new to them. If you've been an avid crossword puzzler for decades, not so much. Learning a new natural language is another example of something that is supposedly good for keeping the creative juices flowing. I wouldn't be surprised if challenging oneself with a new programming paradigm behaves similarly. Which would mean that learning Haskell might make you a better Rubyist, not because (as people often like to say) Haskell teaches you specific things that you can't learn while using Ruby, but because the mental challenge of learning to work with such a drastically different programming language just generally helps keep you sharp. That said, I would not go so far as to speculate that this effect is any greater for learning a programming language than it is for learning Esperanto. Just pick the one that sounds more fun.

codygman 6y ago

> I was spending my free time dabbling in Haskell. His response was 'lol, why would you do that?'. His point was that spending time learning things that you're not going to be using directly any time soon is a waste of time. Just as an anecdote, if you are persistent enough you can learn Haskell and get a job writing it :)