I have to ask. What does it mean to have “learned” the languages you listed?
I’ve been a professional software engineer for 20 years. I’ve been writing in the Go programming language for 14 of those years. And not once have I touched a debugger… until a couple of nights ago. I bring that up to make the point that “learning” something like a programming language is an ongoing process. I sometimes forget things and have to relearn them. And I learn new things I never knew before about Go almost every day. I guarantee I have a ton left to learn. I can name several of them off the top of my head. And that’s even without considering all the new things that will be added to Go in the future. Or to mention all the other languages I regularly write in. OpenSCAD, for instance, is a much simpler language than Go because of its narrow, niche focus. I’ve been writing OpenSCAD code for a good… 8 years or so, and I learn new things about it pretty much every time I use it as well.
I don’t view things in terms of having “learned” a programming language. I’ve learned everything I needed to learn to accomplish each of the projects I’ve done. I’ve also learned things here and there just by watching a random YouTube video or reading a blog post. And I’ll continue to do just that.
My recommendation: make something that you want to make. Learn what you need to learn to make it. It’s fair to make it something relatively small; something that’s only a little bit of a stretch. Or something that’s a big stretch is fine as well. Don’t do the project just to learn. Make your project something you genuinely want to see in the world. Learn by doing and do by learning. Think of the two as one and the same activity. Try to figure out the “right” way to do the thing rather than the “easy” way. And find the fun in thinking deeply about a problem and working through building it until you’re happy with the result.
I have to ask. What does it mean to have “learned” the languages you listed?
I’ve been a professional software engineer for 20 years. I’ve been writing in the Go programming language for 14 of those years. And not once have I touched a debugger… until a couple of nights ago. I bring that up to make the point that “learning” something like a programming language is an ongoing process. I sometimes forget things and have to relearn them. And I learn new things I never knew before about Go almost every day. I guarantee I have a ton left to learn. I can name several of them off the top of my head. And that’s even without considering all the new things that will be added to Go in the future. Or to mention all the other languages I regularly write in. OpenSCAD, for instance, is a much simpler language than Go because of its narrow, niche focus. I’ve been writing OpenSCAD code for a good… 8 years or so, and I learn new things about it pretty much every time I use it as well.
I don’t view things in terms of having “learned” a programming language. I’ve learned everything I needed to learn to accomplish each of the projects I’ve done. I’ve also learned things here and there just by watching a random YouTube video or reading a blog post. And I’ll continue to do just that.
My recommendation: make something that you want to make. Learn what you need to learn to make it. It’s fair to make it something relatively small; something that’s only a little bit of a stretch. Or something that’s a big stretch is fine as well. Don’t do the project just to learn. Make your project something you genuinely want to see in the world. Learn by doing and do by learning. Think of the two as one and the same activity. Try to figure out the “right” way to do the thing rather than the “easy” way. And find the fun in thinking deeply about a problem and working through building it until you’re happy with the result.