should i learn it first ?

[Peter Hansen]

"G. Sumner Hayes" wrote:
> 
[snip stuff]
> I think a good progammer should master at least one statically typed
> functional language (ocaml is my preference, other examples are ML,
> Haskell), one high-level dynamic language (Python, or Ruby, Smalltalk,
> etc) and C for pragmatic reasons.  That gives some exposure to many
> different kinds of programming.
> 
> After that, Lisp, Prolog, and eiffel are worth a look (not necessarily
> master) from a mind-expansion POV (and some assembly language) and from
> a pragmatic POV Perl, Java, and C++ (on Windows) or Objective C (on Mac)
> or the Unix scripting environment (awk, sed, [k]sh, etc) on Unix.

I agree with much of what you say, especially the "consider skipping
C++ and just learn C part", but _what_ pragmatic point of view is it
that has one learning Perl, Java, or C++ when one uses Python already?
Not dissing those languages, but when would you really need them?
Or were you thinking strictly from the "job market pragmatism" POV?

-Peter