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Discussion on: How do you learn a new programming language?

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STrRedWolf
  1. Cheat Sheet 2-4 page reference.
  2. The O'Reily book on the subject for stuff that isn't covered in the condensed version.
  3. Online documentation for APIs.

Seriously. I don't have time to wade through loads of documentation and tutorials. Most languages are an off-shoot of:

  • C (Ex: C++, C#, Perl, Go, Java, Javascript)
  • QuickBasic/Visual Basic (Ex: Informix 4GL, Python, Ruby)
  • Assembly (Ex: 6502, x86, WebAssembly, BrainF**k)
  • Conway's Game of Life*

Note, they may not be off-shoots by timing, but in terms of language structure and style.

Most tutorials are "here's how to program, we'll use X language to teach you." Did that too many times. Don't need to do it again.

So condense it down, give me a ref with some examples, and make sure someone's got a book on it from O'Reily. Rarely will I see a "C does it this way, X lang does it that way" document.

(* I threw that in because a team of bored folk made Tetris in CGoL. Talk about really low level programming!)