Re:How long does it take you to learn a new programming lang...
by Goladus on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @08:21PM
(#13891)
I'm using Python: Essential Reference by David M. Beazley(Third Edition) to learn Python. It's got a no-nonsense tutorial that plows through all the basics first, then has a large reference for the Standard Library. The reference is very similar (almost word for word in some cases) to the online library reference.
I haven't found anything yet, though, on advanced techniques or how to write "pythonic" code. I decided to start reading "On Lisp," instead.
http://safari.oreilly.com/0672328623 (Beazley's Python reference)
It also depends on how you learn it, and who you learn it from. The pickax book is a fantastic book for learning ruby. Same goes for Learning Perl for perl. I've never seen a similar book for Python, but one might exist? For JavaScript you cannot beat Douglas Crockford's videos at the Yahoo! Developer Network. Absolutely fantastic...taught me everything I needed to know to be productive in the language in one weekend. JavaScript also happens to be a great learning language, as it has both functional and imperative constructs and pretty simple syntax and minimal keywords.
Find all of them (along with a few other good ones--Joe Hewitt's Firebug demo, in particular, is what you'll want after the Crockford vids) here:
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/