Learn lots of programming languages – it’s easy and good for your brain! 🧠
One afternoon a few years back I got a book out of the library and taught myself Python and graphical programming using Qt using the online documentation mostly for writing plugins for my own use in QGIS for map making. Then one day I realized that once you understand the signals and slots of Qt, you can write apps pretty easily on it using C++.
I use Python on and off, although I am lazy and do a lot more PHP than I probably should including PHP on the command line for scripting. Been studying up more though on Python as it is a very compact and powerful language to use. Python doesn’t require a lot of typing. Years ago I used to do a Perl for writing CGI scripts for websites, and lately I’ve been reading up on Perl for remembering the old days.
I sometimes program microprocessors like the Arduino and ESP32 to control the lighting and other purposes in C. Microprocessor programming is fun because every bit of memory is precious, you have think about efficiency constantly and how you allocate memory. Plus you can end up with a lot of odd bugs that are fun to swat because your often are manually allocating memory.
For fun one afternoon a few years back I taught myself x86 Assembler and also the legacy languages FORTRAN and COBOL. While I’m no expert at any of those languages, with the help of the internet for documentation I could write, debug and edit those languages somewhat competently. I kind of like COBOL, it’s kind of hillarious on how you have to tell the computer every step you want it to do in great detail. Kind of like driving a Model T with manual spark retard.
How did I learn so many computer languages? Well I only took Computer Science 1 and a Data Structures class in college. But it turns out that computer programming is a lot like driving a car. You can learn how to drive on a Ford, but you can hop in a Toyota and drive it. When you hop in the Toyota, you’ll have to look around to see where the gear shifter and defroster button is but with a good look and maybe a peek at the owner manual, you’ll be pretty competent driver.
Learning multiple programming languages isn’t hard once you get the basic concepts of computer programming. 🖥️
After all, you are doing essentially the same thing regardless of the language – it will be compiled into Assembler and ultimately opcodes for the processor to consume. So just like an automobile at a fundamental level they all work basically the same way.
