Earlier this year I posted about which languages I planned on learning in 2011. A few months later I posted about my progress. Now that 2011 almost has come to an end it’s time to review and see if I actually met any of those goals. How exciting.
I had listed 4 programming languages I planned on learning: Lua, C#, Haskell and Java. And with absolute self confidence I can proudly tell you I’ve fully learned none of them! So, what happened?
Lua
I believe I haven’t written a single line of Lua this year at all. Or maybe I did, I can’t even remember. I do know I was experimenting on a BlitzMax based IRC client, which could be scripted by Lua. But this just might’ve been in 2010… In short, the reason I haven’t done any was because I didn’t have any project I wanted to embed Lua in. Perhaps Maximus? Sure, I know I can use Lua standalone, but I think the true beauty of Lua is the easiness of embedding it. So I think I’ll give my IRC client experiment another go in 2012.
C#
Of all the languages to learn I’ve spent most time with C#. Reason for this was because I needed it to do my homework assignments in it as well as several small projects. Heck, I’ve even used XNA! But I can’t say I’ve spent enough time with it to say I actually learned C#. I can read the code just fine, it’s just that I haven’t memorized some of the basic syntax. Overall I’ve made most progress on C#. In general I don’t enjoy C# too much, but LINQ makes it a lot more fun, that’s for sure.
Haskell
I actually did try some Haskell examples from the book Learn You A Haskell For Great Good. But didn’t come much further with either reading the book or trying stuff out. I have however come to use Amanda, which is another functional programming language which has borrowed a lot from Haskell. It’s what we use at university for the discrete math course. Since I’ll also have to do a couple of exams on it I decided to let Haskell wait a little bit longer. The reason for this is that even though the syntax of both languages are very much alike there’re subtle differences in syntax, which could cost me my head at the paper exams. But I do feel Haskell has given me an advantage in picking up Amanda and discrete math.
Java
Oh Java, thy dreadful beast. I’m most glad I haven’t done anything with Java this year! Turns out we’ll only be using it starting the 2nd school year, together with C++. I’ve already used C++ for a short year, so that won’t be too much of a problem. But finding out I don’t enjoy C# too much (yet), makes me fear how awful programming in Java will be :-(. Perhaps I should give Java a chance though before burning it to the ground.
What’s next
So for 2012 I’m still planning on working with these 4 languages, though Java totally depends on my university. I’ll most likely pick up Haskell somewhere at the beginning of the summer. Perhaps earlier. C# will be needed for more school projects. For Lua I’ll be sure to find a project to integrate it into (probably the IRC client). In the meantime of me not using Lua 5.1, version 5.2 already came out. I haven’t checked yet but I hope they don’t differ too much.
I’ve also still got the book Seven Languages In Seven Weeks which I plan on working through. I’m at the final day for Ruby if I remember correctly. So I’ll be touching several different languages briefly as well.
As a final conclusion I’m not too disappointed. All in all 4 languages might’ve been a bit too much, especially if you consider it was only more or less 6 months I was able to spend time on it. Not forgetting school and work eating up a considerable amount of time next to it as well.