Grant Edwards wrote: >> As for *learning* the languages: never learn a language >> without a specific inducement. > > That's silly. Learning (weather a computer language, a natural > language, or anything else) is never a bad thing. The more > languages you know, the more you understand about languages in > general. Learning languages is like any other skill: the more > you do it, the better you get at it.
Learning a language (whether a natural or a programming language) needs practice, both for reading and for writing. Natural languages are often taught under the guidance of a teacher, to make sure the student gets the practice she needs. In my experience, you won't learn a programming language effectively if you don't get practice (in particular, in writing programs - although reading them might even require *more* practice, especially for C). And, people often don't practice enough (either a natural language, nor a programming language) if they don't have a specific goal in mind what they want to learn the language for. > Geeze, when I think of all the things I've "wasted my time" > learning. That's everybody's choice, of course. If you enjoy programming languages on their own merits, you won't need further motivation. However, then you don't post to a newsgroup "should I learn this language", but you just go ahead and do it. Regards, Martin -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
