A computer science professor I had back in university once joked that the time they gave us to learn a new language was inversely proportional to the number of languages you already knew. There is a lot of truth in this, particularly if you don’t need to take advantage of unique features of a language or its supporting paradigm. Note though, you could really be missing out.
The following are some simple steps you can use to learn any new language and remind yourself of the syntax when you return from it after working in another language just long enough to jumble the definitions in your mind.
- Download any compiler or interpreters required to get the code running.
- Write a “Hello World” program in your favourite editor.
- Compile program, if required
- Run program.
- Now that you know the plumbing works and you are ready try more programs
- Methods/Procedures definitions
- If Statements
- While/For Statements
- Arrays, Lists and complex data structures
- Reading and writing from files
- This should be enough to get started on the problem you wish to solve, and you can research more complex items, as needed. Note that depending on the lanage, there may already be a library that solves this.
- Recursion
- Complex algorithms
- Logging and debugging
Enjoy. See also Programming Language Comparison, which you can use jump start learning basic syntax as a language.
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