Popular conceit about learning programming languages

[Donn Cave]

Quoth mertz at gnosis.cx (David Mertz, Ph.D.):
...
| There's a strange phenomenon with programmers, especially (but not
| exclusively) ones who are attached to one or a couple favorite
| langauges.  They claim--rather persistently--that someone/anyone can
| learn their language in an absurdly short time period.

What you can do in that absurdly short time is transfer your
knowledge of some other language.  Like a trombone player
experimenting with a trumpet - OK, I see how this works, see how
the valves and combinations of valves relate to the slide, and
I'm in business.  Probably way past an ordinary beginning trumpet
player, because the insight from the comparison may make some
things clearer about both instruments.  You still lack reflexes
and muscles for the job, and you'll slave for years to achieve a
good sound, but in a pinch you can do something easy the same day.

But we're assuming you know music.  I guess I must have already
had most of the background for Python when I encountered it,
because it really does seem to me like it was a few hours here
and there over a week and I was programming in Python.  (It was
a few years back - Python 1.1! - but I remember some of it.)

These days I'm trying to teach myself Haskell, and that's a
different story, like learning a really foreign language.
I imagine this is what it must be like to learn Python from
scratch.  I can see how things are done in isolation, but
faced with a problem, I can't quickly envision an idiomatic
solution, and when I see what someone else has done it takes
a while to sink in.

	Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu