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Old 12th February 2012
thirdm thirdm is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 248
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Yeah, it almost feels easier not to have choice. I was probably a no nothing idiot, but it was comfortable for me starting out because my choices were (falsely?) limited. At one point Turbo Pascal was the "obvious" choice among people I chatted with on BBSes. Then Pascal was no good and you had to use C. Then a few years later, if you weren't using C++ and Objected Oriented Programming you must be very small minded (there was a voice or two chiming in that if you really wanted to do OOP you should learn Smalltalk not C++, but that didn't run on PCs back then, I don't think). As simplistic as my way of thinking was it got me somewhere I'm happy with now. I make my living writing mostly C++, quite like using the language (*ducks*), and am excited about where it's going.

Now (I think) I see better that there are many choices with various tradeoffs and no single right path to take. But I feel just as you do the doubt in picking one thing over another. Should I have never looked at Lisp? Should I have stuck with Scheme instead of switching to Common Lisp (and then, which compiler or interpreter should I use). Maybe I should have concentrated on learning C++ better. I may be local guru where I work but I'm novice level compared to real C++ gurus. Or should I spend more of my free time learning things consistent with the new preferences of the company I currently work for rather than learning it piecemeal as I need it? I don't want to spend a lot of my free time learning a proprietary (more or less) language and library set, especially if I can escape it next job, but should a professional not be expert in anything he uses?

I guess you just have to make a choice, go with it a while, then revisit later and potentially switch paths if you have better information then. There's a danger when switching from one thing to another that you never actually write much of anything substantial cause you're always in novice mode or reading books (I'm guilty of this with my recreational programming). To me, if it's something you're doing for enjoyment, that's not that horrible as long as you really do enjoy what you are learning. To others, that may be a serious problem. You might consider asking yourself what programs you want to write and set out goals. Many of the best programmers came at it more that way, I think (maybe minus the goals part -- I guess the best probably just do it without all the deliberation). They wanted to bring something into existence and found the topics they needed to learn.

However you go, though, it's bound to be fun and rewarding, so don't worry too much.
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