

No New Language In 2009; New Habits Instead - r11t
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-new-language-in-2009-new-habits.html

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KirinDave
I'm surprised this has gotten positive responses. This really is an idea that
seems to run counter to a lot of progress in the industry. The notion that
repetition improves performance is _absolutely true_ , but that doesn't mean
that you can neglect your continued education just to repeat.

What's more, learning new languages is repetition of the process of learning.
It's learning how to think about a problem differently (assuming it does, you
may not learn so many new concepts going from Ruby to Python). Learning to
turn over a problem and attack it from a new angle is an essential skill.

There is a terrible temptation that we as engineers all face: to stop
learning. After all, our skillsets are broad enough and it's hard to justify
all these skills we may never use professionally. But that's a dangerous
negative feedback cycle, because all these computer linguists build on other
concepts. Once you fall a generation behind, you the have that much larger a
gap to cross when pioneers have carved out a market that you _do_ want to
enter.

Finally, there is this kind of hidden belief in hacker circles that
functioning but inelegant code is somehow worthless. Of course it's preferable
to have elegant, extensible code... but in a space where there are no
alternatives any functioning code is better than no code at all. Even if you
can't make beautiful code with a skillset, working code is 1000x better than
no code at all.

P.S. Also, the reader should care what Zed Shaw thinks of their code? Facile
understanding of the history of mongrel detected, captain.

~~~
tdonia
My first inclination was the same, but as i read further it became clear that
his core argument, under all that chaff, is simply to pick an interesting
problem for your new year rather than assuming that a new language for the
sake of a new language is in itself a worthwhile problem. new problem for the
new year is hard to argue against if you're into that sort of thing & will
probably net out the same benefits you're looking for, namely, more learning.
that said, his argument has a lot of noise obfuscating a signal that's too
general to be strong. meh.

~~~
petercooper
More illustratively, I'd say he's more saying "go to France, then learn French
as you go" versus the common programmer course of "learn French then never go
there".

Learning Haskell, Erlang, Lisp, etc, can be interesting on its own, but if you
instead try to achieve something or learn about a subject area where Haskell,
Erlang, or Lisp are strong, it's a far better way of learning. Go to France
and _then_ learn French.

~~~
KirinDave
Are you sure you aren't inserting that message because it seems more
reasonable?

That really doesn't seem like the message that's being stated. It is a little
hard to pick out the relevant parts, but it seems like he's going to stick to
what languages he knows and instead focus on solving problem domains.

Learning new languages as you explore new problem domains doesn't seem like
the message in the post, at all.

~~~
petercooper
You might be right, but he talks about using Seaside, which is based on
Smalltalk. I've been following his blog for quite a while and haven't seen
strong reference to learning Smalltalk, yet if you wanted to use Seaside's
strengths to solve a certain problem, you would end up learning some Smalltalk
en-route.

~~~
KirinDave
He talks derisively about a project that used Seaside.

~~~
petercooper
You didn't read to the end of the article. See:

 _In 2009 I'm not planning to learn a new language either, although I am
planning to put up my first production app in Seaside._

------
petercooper
An interview with Giles published today: [http://www.rubyinside.com/top-ruby-
presenter-of-2008-giles-b...](http://www.rubyinside.com/top-ruby-presenter-
of-2008-giles-bowkett-1425.html)

~~~
r11t
I was reading the interview and then happened to check his blog. That is how I
came across his latest blog entry and posted it here.

~~~
petercooper
Awesome! :) His blog is always worth a look.

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jimbokun
"If you do that, Zed Shaw will find you and skullfuck you to death. I'm not
kidding. He and I have made a deal with Satan, and this was one of the perks
he requested."

Looks like Giles missed the memo that the ZSFA persona has been put to rest.
Guess Giles will have to take on this role solo, now.

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ii
How true. As an example, learning and understanding Python/C API was much more
practical and enlightening experience for me than experience of learning a new
language like Haskell or O'Caml.

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mmmurf
The idea of breaking up a problem into manageable mini-steps is the essence of
Getting Things Done:

<http://www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php>

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arjungmenon
Do both. Learn new languages and new habits.

