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I heard that argument many dozen times regarding certain type of programming languages can make me a better programmer. Boy I think I took that advise from the

I heard that argument many dozen times regarding certain type of programming languages can make me a better programmer. Boy I think I took that advise from the wrong source. Math can make me a better programmer. Statistics can make me a better programmer. Accounting can make me a better programmer. Biology can make me a better programmer. Chemistry can make me a better programmer. Building Macros and DSLs are the new Ivory Tower of software architecture.

dmpk2k 15y ago
Sadly, it took me five years of lost time mucking around with every language under the sun to figure this out. Spend a few months to find a reasonable ecosystem (NB: the libraries, tools and community, not just the language), then move on.
neilk 15y ago
I must strongly disagree with this. Learning functional programming was one of the best things I ever did. It gave me a huge advantage when tackling certain problems, which helps me to this day. At my current workplace people call me in to help when they have tricky problems because they are aware I have a different skillset. I started out in 'scripting' languages, and I can even say that learning Java, in a group with some very skilled OO gurus, was a mind-expanding experience. I have even seen it happen, en masse, at a company which was composed of various language partisans uniting under one roof. After exposure to each others' ways, I think we all become better programmers for it.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  I agree, knowing it can be huge. I'd even go so far as to say that at work, colleagues who know functional programming generally write code that is noticeably more efficient and maintainable. And on some platforms (.NET since 2006 comes to mind), you simply have to be comfortable with FP to be able to work effectively. But on the other hand, the days where one could get away with treating 'LISP' as a proxy for 'Functional Programming' are long gone. Aside from the hoary old beasts from the 20th century such as Java, pretty much all the major languages have first-class procedures and suchlike nowadays. LISP is no longer distinguished by having good support for functional programming; it's distinguished by lacking good support for procedural programming.
finnw 15y ago
I never really "learned" lisp (I read a library book about it as a teenager but I didn't have access to a computer that ran it.) But I did learn Haskell later, and I think that made me worse at the job (C++) I was doing at the time, because it gave me the habit of trying to write C++ in a functional style and made me more frustrated with C++'s type system.
paines 15y ago
You forgotz painting !!! How dare you do that !

dmpk2k 15y ago

Sadly, it took me five years of lost time mucking around with every language under the sun to figure this out. Spend a few months to find a reasonable ecosystem (NB: the libraries, tools and community, not just the language), then move on.

neilk 15y ago

I must strongly disagree with this. Learning functional programming was one of the best things I ever did. It gave me a huge advantage when tackling certain problems, which helps me to this day. At my current workplace people call me in to help when they have tricky problems because they are aware I have a different skillset. I started out in 'scripting' languages, and I can even say that learning Java, in a group with some very skilled OO gurus, was a mind-expanding experience. I have even seen it happen, en masse, at a company which was composed of various language partisans uniting under one roof. After exposure to each others' ways, I think we all become better programmers for it.

bunderbunder 15y ago
I agree, knowing it can be huge. I'd even go so far as to say that at work, colleagues who know functional programming generally write code that is noticeably more efficient and maintainable. And on some platforms (.NET since 2006 comes to mind), you simply have to be comfortable with FP to be able to work effectively. But on the other hand, the days where one could get away with treating 'LISP' as a proxy for 'Functional Programming' are long gone. Aside from the hoary old beasts from the 20th century such as Java, pretty much all the major languages have first-class procedures and suchlike nowadays. LISP is no longer distinguished by having good support for functional programming; it's distinguished by lacking good support for procedural programming.

finnw 15y ago

I never really "learned" lisp (I read a library book about it as a teenager but I didn't have access to a computer that ran it.) But I did learn Haskell later, and I think that made me worse at the job (C++) I was doing at the time, because it gave me the habit of trying to write C++ in a functional style and made me more frustrated with C++'s type system.

paines 15y ago

You forgotz painting !!! How dare you do that !