2011-08-25

learning breadth vs depth

This is the list of languages that I learned and used at university, when studying Computer Science
  1. C
  2. C++
  3. Java
  4. Python
  5. Perl
  6. Common Lisp
  7. Prolog
  8. Shell scripting
  9. motorola 68k assembler
  10. MIPS assembler
This is the list of languages that I learned and/or used at work, when developing corporate software
  1. Java
  2. Perl
  3. C++
  4. C
  5. Ruby
  6. BPEL ? (this doesn't really count)
The above lists are ordered by frequency of use.
Now it may look like I learned a hell of a lot more languages at uni than I have at work; But really we only had time to learn the surface of those languages and just enough to get the subject projects completed.
At work we may only use a small number of languages, but I've had to study them in greater depth. In addition, I've had to learn a lot of different frameworks and tools (especially in Java) to learn.

It's a matter of :
  • breadth vs depth
  • core-language vs tools and frameworks.

No comments:

Post a Comment