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Fri, 29 Apr 2005

Ralph Johnson on Learning Langauges and Finding Experts

Pat posted a gem from the Domain-Driven Design yahoo group. Ralph's advice ties directly into Find Your Master and Your First Language, two of the apprenticeship patterns I'm fiddling with.

My favorite nugget of wisdom from Ralph...

"By far the best way to learn a language is to work with an expert in it. You should pick a language based on people who you know. One expert is all it takes, but you need one."

This alters my direction on the Your First Language pattern. I had been wanting to advocate starting with dynamic languages because they help tie into the Short Feedback Loops pattern. Ralph's advice helps me see that the attributes of a language are not the only way to shorten feedback loops.

The availability of the feedback of a nearby language expert should be a major factor when selecting Your First Language.

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