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Remembering Multiple Programming Languages?

posted by janrinok on Monday April 07 2014, @02:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-forget-more-than-I-remember dept.

Subsentient writes:

I've historically always tried to stick to one or two big languages, because as soon as I start deviating even for a week, I go back to my primaries and find that I, humiliatingly, have forgotten things that anyone else would be completely incapable of forgetting. Now, I'm going to be learning assembly, since that kind of thing falls in line with my interests, and I'm concerned about forgetting big chunks of C while I learn. I already often have the standard open in a tab constantly despite using C since 2012, so my question is, how do you guys who are fluent in multiple languages manage to remember them? Have you been using both for almost forever? Are you all just mediocre in multiple languages rather than pro in one or two?

 
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  • (Score: 1) by jdccdevel on Monday April 07 2014, @04:40PM

    by jdccdevel (1329) on Monday April 07 2014, @04:40PM (#27614) Journal

    I've been programming off and on for 15 years. Switching between language syntax isn't (and shouldn't be) a big deal. Once you've learned the concept of how a language construct works (Not just loops and arrays, but hashes, Closures, anonymous functions, objects, etc) transitioning from one to the other should be easy. Most "Procedural" programming languages (C, Perl, PHP, etc) have a similar syntax, same with "Object Oriented" languages. "Java, C++, Python). I haven't dabbled that much with functional languages (Lisp, Scheme, etc) but what I've seen the syntax is very similar. Each style of programming language has a particular logic flow, and that's the part you're really reading and writing anyway.

    That being said, the hard part is the API. The API is what you need to be productive, and how you interface with the world. Each language has a very unique one, and there's a LOT of detail to remember. This is where a good reference is invaluable. Making good notes helps a lot too. So does reviewing your old code written in the same language before you start.

    Usually I find that I can READ most code easily, because what the API does is usually obvious from the way it's called. WRITING the code, on the other hand, takes lots of time. I've honestly given up on trying to memorize the api details. Maybe if I could stick to one language for a couple of years, I wouldn't need the API reference open all the time, but so far I haven't had that opportunity.