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honey the codewitch wrote: I used to just absorb new programming languages. I think maybe I'm getting old? I read somewhere that our intelligence and mental flexibility peaks in our late 20s?
Possibly. However, I read Rust learning curve is steep (even for monsters).
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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I hope that's what it is. But then I picked up C++ pretty readily. I was a lot younger then though. And it did take me years before I was what I would consider proficient with it. Even still there are holes in my knowledge, so I guess yeah. I'm maybe just worrying about this for no good reason.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Younger-You probably overestimated how good they were with C++ for that learning period.
Today-You, being older and wiser (or at least more self-aware), is much more aware that your skills in a language you've only used briefly are nowhere near as complete in one you've spent many years with.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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I didn't. I had to be told I was good at it for years before I decided I wasn't terrible, and even now I have my doubts. But I *was* able to learn it.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Welcome to “it sux getting old”.
Quote: intelligence and mental flexibility peaks in our late 20s
I disagree, I reckon I did my best work when I was in my 40’s. I had 20+ years experience to call on and was still flexible enough to take on new tech.
I think everyone has an affinity with something. Me, I’ve always liked Office automation & web services. In the last 2 years I’ve had the opportunity to use OpenXML and I’ve just started looking at REST. I’m hitting the other side of mid 50’s and I think I’m doing Ok with what I’m doing, but I am completely lost with a lot of stuff outside of that.
What we like we do with enthusiasm (and it’s easy), when we don’t the eyelids become heavy.
// TODO: Insert something here Top ten reasons why I'm lazy
1.
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That's a good point. I was 30something before I really picked up parsing. Maybe what I read was nonsense. 
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Quote: intelligence and mental flexibility peaks in our late 20s
Quote: I reckon I did my best work when I was in my 40’s
I see no contradiction.
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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yacCarsten wrote: What we like we do with enthusiasm (and it’s easy), when we don’t the eyelids become heavy.
This is very true. As a young professional, I was excited about everything and learned everything very quickly.
Fast forward 10 years, and I started picking-n-choosing, as IT saw so much change and churn. At the time I thought I was overburdened with choices, but in hindsight I had lost my enthusiasm for "everything".
Fast forward another 20 years and I pick-n-choose very selectively -- the very few things that excite me I still learn quickly, but learning Go or Rust? The manuals are totally fantastic when I have insomnia ...
Something else to consider -- 30 to 40 years ago, IT was still expanding. We didn't have the plethora of languages we do today, although at the time I thought we had a lot. Now? Everything I see is a retread of earlier stuff in a different package (lipstick on a pig), or it's a monument to ego (see! I made a new language!).
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BryanFazekas wrote: We didn't have the plethora of languages we do today
Yes we did ... but they were different languages, not just minor variations of C!
Think of APL, with it workspace concept and free floating matrices and functions.
Think of Snobol, with its predicate matching integrated into an algorithmic programming language.
Think of Lisp, and its very data structured (list) oriented design.
Think of Prolog, the predicate language that was expected to take over the world through the '5th generation project'.
Think of purely functional languages such as Erlang.
Think of highly parallel languages such as Occam.
Think of event oriented languages such as CHILL.
Languages where different and exciting. Who cares about yet another minor change to C syntax?
Besides: The majority of language developments today certainly are not done to provide you with a better language, but to lure you into some different infrastructure, software ecology, environment, ... Once you have entered it, you are locked into it. The development you do in, say, Python (randomly chosen example!), cannot easily be utilized by other developers unless they as well move into the Python sphere. Which is the exact reason for the Python ecology being designed the way it is: As a way to exert power, to control as much as possible of the software development process, bringing it into the Python ecosystem. That seems to be its basic purpose: There is no real reason why Python should not be just another algorithmic language alongside with all the old ones.
Sure, there are modern variants of most 'non-c-derived' languages, but who cares about them today? In language discussions, their only purpose seems to be to make old farts (like me) shut up. In all respects, they are irrelevant.
So: New languages of today, yet another variation of c syntax, are plainly boring! Who would care to study them?
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trønderen wrote: Yes we did ... but they were different languages, not just minor variations of C!
You raise a good point, although my POV is a bit different. I learned 2 of the languages you mentioned for individual contracts, and never had a reason to learn any of the others. In the business consulting world I lived in, only a handful of mainstream languages had any market share. As a consultant, I focused on languages that I could use professionally.
trønderen wrote: As a way to exert power, to control as much as possible of the software development process, bringing it into the Python ecosystem.
That is an excellent point!
I worked briefly in Object/1, which IIRC was billed as "Smalltalk with C syntax". I realized it was going no where and shifted roles to a C segment of the project. A few years later the customer had to completely rewrite the application from scratch, as support for that version of Object/1 was dropped.
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I guess I learned most of the off-mainstream languages - such as APL, Snobol, Prolog - as a student; I didn't have to worry about professional use. Actually, I never used any of those three professionally, ever. None of the languages I have been required to learn as a professional has been anywhere close to 'exciting', considered as language designs.
'As a student' does not necessarily mean 'taking a course at the University'. Snobol I picked up for one single reason: On the network (before Internet - a network named MECC) we had access to at high school, I accidentally bumped into a version of Eliza (the therapist) - a rather primitive variant, but it was written in just 200 lines of Snobol source code. I was so impressed that I had to get to know that language!
APL I learned in high school, too: I made friends with a guy whose father worked at IBM, having been on the 5100 design team (Wikipedia: IBM 5100[^]). He was so proud of his father's work that he insisted I learned to program that machine! I did, and was fascinated by APL.
Prolog was a balloon ready to burst in my study days. It did, but not until I had completed a Prolog course. Nothing ever became of Prolog or the entire 5th generation project.
I never programmed in Occam at all, but we studied it in one course at the university.
I guess students of today also dive into a lot of stuff that they will never be using professionally. Maybe today they study all sorts of AI methods? I don't know. But I enjoyed being a student in the years when language design was hot and exciting.
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trønderen wrote: I guess I learned most of the off-mainstream languages - such as APL, Snobol, Prolog - as a student
Same here. I learned 6 or 7 languages during my studies, ones never looked at again. Personally, I believe CS students should be taught a range of languages they might never touch again, as it provides a breadth of understand that makes future learning easier.
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BryanFazekas wrote: Everything I see is a retread of earlier stuff in a different package (lipstick on a pig), or it's a monument to ego (see! I made a new language!).
Yup, pretty much.
We've passed the point where we've saturated the field of programming with novel features and languages, somewhere around 2010.
Last language I learned out of curiosity was D, and even then I knew it was just a rehash of C with a neat compiler and no viable ecosystem.
When looking at Rust, I quite literally see a C variant with thread safety that's specialized for system-level code.
I can pick it up in a day, maybe 2 if the toolchain is finicky, but why bother without a concrete project lined up?
I doubt it will teach me any great insight I've missed in the last 27 languages I picked up.
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Kate-X257 wrote: I doubt it will teach me any great insight I've missed in the last 27 languages I picked up.
I know what you mean. 
During the first 10 years of my career (started late 80's), on average I learned a new language, tool, library, or package every 3 months. This includes version changes where the differences required study and/or effort. A large part of that was being a consultant/contractor, so I learned whatever the new client needed.
Now? Companies and organizations pump out new versions in an attempt to stay relevant, and force churn by dropping support for "old" versions, after periods as short as 12 - 18 months.
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I have read that it can be a real pain (not that I have coded in Rust) to manage memory because it has memory ownership. That's purely anecdotal by the by.
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Visual Code has an extension; Rust Extension Pack by Swellaby
I've been trying to learn it also but, like you I just haven't been able to wrap my head around it. (I am old...that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) 
The most expensive tool is a cheap tool. Gareth Branwyn
JaxCoder.com
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Thanks! I'll check that out.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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From what I have seen it is a mixture of C, Java, Javscript, Python, C++ etc. The main difficulty is the designers' use of obscure terminology rather than using the same words that most developers are used to. I can see no reason why I would ever need it.
I always found that trying to learn a new language after lunch put me to sleep. 
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maybe you are a little rusty ?
(sorry, I'll get my coat)
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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It looks like text speak: no caps, pointless abbreviations, and words that don't mean what they mean in conventional terms. Might be ideal for programming with your thumbs only.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: ...looks like text speak: no caps, pointless abbreviations, and words that don't mean what they mean in conventional terms.
Sounds like *nix.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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TNCaver wrote: Sounds like *nix
... or cmd or powershell or ...
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Part of it probably is because you're older, but not because of any mental breakdown or slowdown but because what you've learned and worked with so far has burned their paradigms into your brain, and your brain is resisting Rust's paradigm.
Or I could just be blowing hot air; I've not looked closely enough at Rust syntax to know how different it is.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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I don't think it's age related. Apart from some exceptional cases brain can be trained similarly to muscles regardless of how old we are. It rather can be something connected to some sort of fatigue or lack of motivation or combination of both factors even though that you can think that you're motivated in reality it can be not true.
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Our brains get full. Would be nice to have selective memory erasure to free up some of it for other uses.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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