As I explain in 2009 Programming Language Plan, I’ve been in the process of evaluating programming languages to determine their suitability for use in my work. I’ve been proceeding on two fronts – statically typed functional programming languages and the venerated Lisp family.
I first became interested in functional programming when I was exposed to Python, Ruby & JavaScript a number of years ago. Since then I’ve looked into Arc, Clojure, Common Lisp, Haskell, Logo, ML & Scheme. I haven’t yet determined whether I’ll be more productive in any of them than I am with Ruby for developing web applications, but I do find them quite interesting.
One of the two parallel tracks in my 2009 Programming Language Plan begins with the Standard ML programming language, so it’s time to get started.
Update 11/23/2020: The ultimate winner for my primary programming language was Racket.
The 2008 Programming Language Plan didn’t go as well as I hoped, so I’m regrouping for another go at it. I did make progress learning some Logo and teaching it to my daughters, and I worked through seven chapters of “Programming in Haskell” which was very enjoyable, but I also spent way too much time trying to decide which language(s) to learn without actually learning them.
I recently obtained a mobile broadband device that has a built in GPS receiver and can emit NMEA sentences. My old Garmin portable GPS can emit NMEA also, but it’s a pain to hookup to the laptop. Combining a GPS unit in a mobile broadband device is a great idea.