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Re: advice for the undergrad



T. Michael Keesey wrote:
From: "Sarah Werning" <swerning@gmail.com>
Many programs also accept computer programming languages as second
languages

Really?? That's kind of odd, since programming languages are much easier to gain fluency in. Well ... you have to learn one first, and then the rest are pretty easy. If you know ActionScript, for example, then you basically know JavaScript (they are derived from the same standard), can fairly easily learn Java, C, C++, C#, PHP, etc. and

After doing software development these past twenty years, I'd like to meet someone who can fairly easily learn C++. :)


Learning the rudiments of any language, human or machine, might take only a few months. Acquiring fluency (or in machine languages, proficiency) is completely another matter. I can say "spacibo" or ask for "dva piva" after listening to a CD, but I'm not going to appreciate Pushkin for some time yet. The hypothetical Java programmer might understand a looping construct, but that's a long way from being able to design and implement a non-trivial application.

it's not too much of a stretch to learn Perl, Python, Ruby, BASIC,
etc. Some elements appear in almost every programming language, like
"if" blocks, "for" and "while" loops, mathematical operators,
functions, etc.

Anyway, it takes at most a year or so to learn a computer language
(and usually just a month or two), while human languages can take
anywhere from a couple of years to a decade. Seems odd to equate them.