Why is it always "what language should I learn next" instead of "what project should I tackle next"?

Posted by MikeRand on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by MikeRand
Published on 2011-02-09T20:55:44Z Indexed on 2011/02/09 23:34 UTC
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beginners

Hi all,

Why do beginning programmers (like me) always ask about the next language they should learn instead of asking about the next project to tackle?

Why did Eric Raymond, in the "Learn How To Program" section of his "How To Become A Hacker" essay, talk about the order in which you should learn languages (vs. the order in which you should tackle projects).

Do beginning carpenters ask "I know how to use a hammer ... should I learn how to use a saw or a level next?"

I ask because I'm finding that almost any meaningful project I'm interested in tackling (e.g. a web app, a set of poker analysis tools) requires that I learn just enough of a multitude of languages (Python, C, HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL) and frameworks/libraries (wxPython, tkinter, Django) to implement them.

Thanks,

Mike

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