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Discussion on: What languages I choose to learn and why?

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davelsan profile image
David Velasco

Your choices are very close mine, although I wouldn't really say I "chose" them. Kind of the opposite, actually. Beware, long comment ahead!

 

1. C-sharp

 
My first language love, and as it usually is with these things, it will always be very close to my heart. It was 2012 and there was a very popular modding effort for a huge game a the time. I started contributing to the wiki and before I knew it, a couple of folks on the project started mentoring me. Looking back now, I truly believe this was one of the best "choices" I ever made: great language to get a solid understanding of OOP principles, unbeatable start by contributing to an open source project and amazing people to get me through it. Boy do I miss them sometimes...

 

2. Ruby, Python, R

 

A year or so later I started my BSc thesis. Coming from a mainly wet lab background, I wanted to do something with my newly acquired programming skills; I decided to start a bioinformatics internship. They were using ruby at the place, so I adopted it. Coding in ruby is sort of nice, comfy to write with, but I missed static type checking.
 
Fast-forward another year, I was hired by a lab to keep doing data science. Folks there used python and R. I decided to go with the former because R feels like a very niche language, albeit very useful for computational statistics. Eventually I tried my hand at R too, for a while, but I will avoid using it again unless strictly necessary (best tool for the job and all that).
 
Not that I didn't like data science, but when I look back, this is probably the single worst decision I made when it comes to pursuing a career in computer science. I literally went from having a blast being part of a large community, to complete isolation while working on a multitude of unrelated projects. I know this likely was a problem with the place I was working at, but sometimes I feel I threw my soul down the drain and flushed. For a year afterwards, I actually pursued a completely unrelated career and avoided any type of programming.

 

3. JavaScript (Vue.js), TypeScript (Node.js, Angular)

 

Do you know how it feels when you think you'll never love again, but one day it all comes back and crushes you hard again? This is where I am now.
 
For a long time I kept hearing how horrible a language JavaScript was, so I never imagined what happened when I tried it. Dude, I started enjoying it almost instantly. Sure, I missed types from the C# days, but its syntax, a mix between functional and OOP (I know, not real OOP) that I could switch to and fro at will, captivated me in a way that is hard to describe. Then I found TypeScript and my heart was complete again; still in pieces, but all of them there.
 
I am an absolute noob at it, sort of scared of making anything public again. But I am slowly rebuilding myself, having an absolute blast trying things out. I have a few projects that I am working on daily and I keep dreaming of releasing them to the world, some day.
 
So there you have it, my "choices" and why. Not sure why I decided to write again about myself, here in a comment, after so long. But thank you for your post, dear stranger. For bringing back that piece of myself.

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lleonardogr profile image
Leonardo Gasparini Romão

That's awesome, you have an interesting history about what languages did you learn, even their just appears in your life. Starting over is a hard step but i'm sure that you be proud of your work now. Thanks by feedback for the post and Keep Learning \o