

Ask HN: Hacking ability related to teaching language? - grinich

Do you think a person's programming ability is related to the language(s) they learned to code in? If so, what languages are superior and why?
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Prikrutil
It would be very tempting for me just to answer "yes, it's very important" or
"not, it doesn't matter at all" with appropriate arguments, but I don't think
any of those answers could reflect in full what I actually think.

It's very important. Your effectiveness as a programmer depends on which
languages you can use when solving problems. Also how easy it will be to
extend your program in the future depends (among other things) on which
language you've chosen.

If you want a language to reflect your thoughts as directly as possible you
may want to use one of the problem-oriented languages (R for statistics,
Erlang for fault-toleranse servers, Python for scripts etc).

I think that language _matters_ , because the right chosen one usually
increases your efficiency when it comes to writing a specific applicatoin.

It doesn't matter.

In short: it doesn't matter how sharp a sword in your hand is if you are a
master of swords.

My current languages-to-learn list is: [Erlang | [Haskell, OCaml, Lisp,
Python, R]]

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tokenadult
Every programmer I know who has learned Lisp (that is, some Lisp dialect)
thinks that was very helpful for learning how to think better about
approaching programs. It's especially the functional approach to programming
that my son misses when, for example, he has to write code for a numerical
computing class in MatLab rather than in Haskell, his current favorite
language.

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stonemetal
No, ingenuity isn't restricted to a single language. Besides after you have
your eyes opened to new experiences in other languages your first language
doesn't matter that much. When you first pick up a new language sure you drag
your old programming habits into it but if you make the effort\spend the time
in the new language you will pickup its habits after a while.

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hs
yes, functional languages because they're more mathematical

