Popular conceit about learning programming languages

[Manuel M. Garcia]

On Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:00:47 -0500, mertz at gnosis.cx (David Mertz)
wrote:
(edit)
>But even given that, a comparative linguist who "learns" Tlingit doesn't
>really learn to carry on conversations with Tlingit speakers
(edit)
>When programmers optimistically "learn" a language in a couple days, it
>is a similar thing.

Good point.  It "felt" like I learned Python in just a few hours, but
I still have some of that early code on my hard drive, and looking at
it makes me sick.

Around the time I was learning Python, I was doing a lot of coding in
Visual Basic, so I know why my early code makes me sick.

Python, compared to other languages, does very little to stand in your
way in being productive.  Nothing outlandish, no maddening omissions,
no strange operators, very few special cases, code can be translated
into Python from other languages quickly without a very deep knowledge
of Python.  So it can "feel" like one can learn it very quickly.

Manuel