[sf-perl] [meeting] Pegex and Acmeism

[Rich Morin]

At 12:16 PM -0700 10/16/11, Joseph Brenner wrote:
> That's one of the reasons that I think the "mental exercise"
> argument for learning another language is pretty weak.  I'm
> someone who's more-or-less a "perl programmer", but I
> couldn't avoid using a half-dozen languages (of one sort or
> another) if I wanted to.  And I could easily spend my life
> getting mental exercise by learning my way around new CPAN
> modules.

  "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about
   programming, is not worth knowing."

  -- EPIGRAMS IN PROGRAMMING
     http://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html

     From ACM's SIGPLAN publication, (September, 1982),
     Article "Epigrams in Programming", by Alan J. Perlis
     of Yale University.

Some of the languages I work with are very similar to each
other.  JSON and YAML (at least, the parts I use) are close
enough to fit in the same mental pigeonhole.  Ruby, Perl,
and JavaScript are also pretty close cousins, though the OO
implementations vary substantially.

However, I think there _is_ something to be learned from a
language that approaches things very differently than the
ones you already know.  So, I've been working my way through

  "Learn You a Haskell for Great Good"
  http://learnyouahaskell.com/

It's very readable and approachable and has given me several
ideas that have found their way into my code (which is NOT
in Haskell).

-r
-- 
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Software system design, development, and documentation