From which programming language did you «get it»?

1 points by garmonbozia8668 ↗ HN
Did a specific language/system/book really impact your journey on programming?

I am a CS graduate and have been exposed to many different languages. In my day job I work with iOS and Swift as a junior engineer. Even though I am performing, I am not really «getting it» in the same ways I would understand things with C#. I have less experience with C# and .NET, but when I am exposed to it I typically understand what is going on much faster.

It might be because many books outside iOS actually tells you what is going on from the ground up and iOS books are «oh don’t worry about that stuff just know…». I feel the approach to other systems are more direct and hands on, while anything Apple is obfuscated a bit.

Have any of you had similar experiences? For reference I have experience with Swift, C, C++, C#, Java, Python mostly and C# resonnates the most even though I can accomplish more in Swift.

2 comments

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i started on javascript and c++ back in '98. learning Haskell in 2012 completely changed how i thought about programming.

haskell taught me how to see the solution to a problem as a separate entity from the calculation of the solution. the imperative paradigm makes it very easy to mix up data, state, runtime execution, where you are just implementing a compiler in your head and going.

where as in haskell i just think about the problem and keep "describing" it to the computer. eventually i have a top level expression that simply represents the value i care about. its much easier to disentangle the idea from the implementation.

that kind of thinking carries over in me to this day. i like to think my java today is much better because of that time spent living in haskell.