2007 / July 9^th/ A Language a Year

This is a tip for all you designers / models developers that want to become better coders. HTML and CSS is one thing, but if you really want to clean up your code and start writing beautiful code, the only solution is to broaden your point of view. Learning one language well is great, but it’s also important to learn a new language now and then. You’ll be surprised at how similar languages are, and how you’ll be able to start hacking languages you wouldn’t dare touch earlier.

So here’s my tip for you: each year pick out a new language and learn it. Buy a book on it, do some sample projects and see how you like. It’s something that I apparently had been doing by myself more or less, but I know of a couple developers that try and do this to keep up their chops.

Here’s my history of languages thus far:

• VBScript (ASP 3.0 Style)
• PHP
• C++
• SQL
• JavaScript
• XSL-T
• Ruby

Right now my current challenge is ActionScript 3.0 (through Flex). It’s giving me a hard time, because it’s the first language I’ve really taken seriously that’s strong-typed. It’s a rough transition, but it’s always nice to get a new viewpoint on coding.

The great thing about this is the knowledge you can bring to every facet of computing. I’m no longer afraid of the *nix shell, and have even whipped up a few bash scripts (with help from my friend Google). I’ve been able to dive into .NET, J2EE (and Struts), and just about any templating language on the market. I think my most proud moment was diving into some pretty hardcore VBScript to get the most intense spreadsheet ever™ working.

What language are you going to learn this year? Stuck on some ideas? Here’s some hot choices:

• Python
• Lisp (Also used in AutoCAD)
• SmallTalk
• Objective-C
• C#

1. 

   Arpit Jacob

   July 10^th | #

   well I am mostly a .NET(C#) guy I can work with XSLT, Javascript, and SQL Currently I started playing with PHP I might look into ruby a bit later.

2. 

   Veracon

   July 10^th | #

   Learn Python! Yay!
   (But really, it’s a great language.)

   At the moment I’m learning Latin, but after that I’ll probably try a bit more Io (http://www.iolanguage.com/), which I’ve found is a great way to truly learn object-orientation.

3. 

   Geof Harries

   July 10^th | #

   I started out with HTML, then ColdFusion, moved to PHP, back to ColdFusion and now, oddly, am focused on HTML and JS again.

   As a front-end designer, I know my next focus needs to be on Flex and AS3, but lack of time…oh lack of time, how you mock me.

4. 

   Nathan Smith

   July 10^th | #

   @Kyle: Good to see you’ve changed your opinion of books, compared to what you said a year ago.

   “Cal Poly’s motto is ‘Learn by doing’ — and that’s where I excel. Give me a book to read and I’ll throw it on the ground. Give me a project to build and I’ll hack away until the sun comes up.”

5. 

   Kyle

   July 10^th | #

   Nathan: You may have caught me a bit there ;) But, to be fair… I still don’t buy books unless they’re tutorial-based (i.e. you do something with them). Just reading “theory” gets way boring to me.

6. 

   Geof Harries

   July 10^th | #

   Kyle, what Flex book do you recommend picking up?

7. 

   Kyle

   July 10^th | #

   I’ve been working my way through Flex 2: Training from the source and I like it. It teaches you flex through building an example application. It stresses a couple times that it’s not here to teach you Object-Oriented programming though, so if you’re not that comfortable with some basic OO concepts, I’d suggest digging your way through that first.

8. 

   Luke

   July 12^th | #

   Well, it’s my gap year now, so i’m going to learn …. PHP (fully) and get some feel to how Ruby on Rails works. Ill being ASP and C, C# at Uni anyway, so in a few years I’ll have a pretty flexible catalogue.

   Oh, and Japanese. Kawaii!

9. 

   Ryan

   July 29^th | #

   I think it’s hard to take away from the already limited time to learn something new, especially if something you already know you like hasn’t received the attention you’d like it to. I develop in Ruby on Rails and don’t know it to the extent that I’d like to. I’d also like to learn Django, just to see how “the other” popular web framework does things. Plus, I might learn how to do the Ruby/Rails stuff better.

   Anyway, it’s hard to pry myself away from Rails to learn something new, but I’d like to at times.

10. 

    phalacee

    August 13^th | #

    I certainly agree with you about needing to add languages to your toolkit. As a developer and designer, I find that new languages are essential. I would have to say though that limiting yourself to one language a year may be a little dangerous, considering the state the industry is in at the moment.

    I’ve chosen to start learning at least one language every 3 months or so - once you learn something like php or Java, picking up most of the other OOPL’s becomes very easy.

    In the past 12 months I have picked up Ruby/Rails, JSP - to the point where I can build complex web apps in both. I’ve also started learning to use Flex, although I mastered actionscript early last year.

    In terms of desktop development, I toyed with Ook! and a few other compiled languages.

    I’ve also started learning to use some of the larger AJAX frameworks (YUI, Dojo, and jQuery) and PHP rapid development frameworks (CakePHP and QCodo mostly).

11. 

    Luis

    August 31^st | #

    Learning different languages is like when you learn to play an instrument, as much types of music you listen as much resources you’ll have to play what you really like!

    My approach is PHP OO really kick-ass, (something I already should know).

    PS: I like to identify with your ideas, is nice ;)

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