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Re:The spiral of learning by gvickers on Tuesday December 31, 2013 @06:04PM (#6993335)
I used to be in the exact same position. Switching between different languages, paradigms, frameworks helps immensely in narrowing down you're area of interest. I spent a significant amount of time playing with python, tried thinking "pythonically" and using it as my side-project language. But after about a year I never got comfortable, maybe it was the mature community surrounding the language or its opinionated nature.

Anyway, I distinctly remember learning about Clojure, and being completely enamored with the ideas Rich Hickey talked about. I would still get bored of doing 4clojure problems, but instead of abandoning them for a different subject entirely I would watch a ClojureConj video, read a blog on a Clojure library, or even just practice some of the tooling like emacs key-chords.

I believe the learning process is better when it is erratic, both for you're own sanity and the overall completeness of a knowledge domain you can acquire after jumping around from topic to topic.

5 months in, I am trying to push Clojure/Cljs ideas into the C# shop I work at, and upholding my promise to do SOMETHING regarding the language or tooling every night.

Our brains seem to work best this way, storing an idea in our subconscious after rigorous study allows us to process it in the background. I find myself frequently daydreaming about language constructs or architectural designs.

Re:The spiral of learning by shadowcats on Wednesday January 01, 2014 @02:47PM (#6996259)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990935

Would appreciate your feedback on that!

Re:The spiral of learning by voltagex_ on Tuesday December 31, 2013 @06:31PM (#6993436)
Why Clojure instead of F# or more advanced C#?
Re:The spiral of learning by laichzeit0 on Wednesday January 01, 2014 @02:38AM (#6994500)
Because it's Microsoft technologies locked into a Microsoft stack. And before people start chiming in about Mono: Good luck selling that idea in a large bureaucratic enterprise environment. For all the hassle involved you're better off sticking to something that runs on a JVM.
Re:The spiral of learning by voltagex_ on Wednesday January 01, 2014 @04:13AM (#6994625)
That's why I suggested it - the parent said they were already in a MS shop, there'd be significantly less resistance with staying on the same stack.