The Next Big Language

[Andrej Mitrovic]

Knowing the syntax and knowing how to use a language are two very
different things. If you're a newbie you can learn the C syntax in a
couple of weeks, but you would be very wrong to assume that you know
e.g. "70%" of C, and that you could read any C project and understand
it well.

On 10/19/10, bearophile <bearophileHUGS at lycos.com> wrote:
> Rainer Deyke:
>
>> That depends on the language, I think.  C++ takes years to learn.
>> Python took me one month to reach full fluency.  There may still be
>> obscure corners of Python that I haven't explored, but they so obscure
>> that I'm unlikely to ever encounter them in normal programming.  They
>> don't matter.
>>
>> Learning the associated libraries is another matter, but also largely
>> unnecessary in my opinion.  I just program with a reference manual in my
>> web browser.
>
> This is correct. After a month there are parts of Python that you probably
> ignore (details about destructor semantics of __del__, metaclasses, how to
> implement a decorator correctly, and so on an on) but you are able to write
> acceptable Python code, you probably know more than 60/70% of core Python
> language. To learn 60% of D2 you probably need quite more than a month.
> (Still, what has said Walter is generally correct. Programmers try to
> protect the investment of time and brain energy they have giving to a
> language).
>
> Bye,
> bearophile
>