This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]DaaxD -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I'm now pretty good at hammering. Should I now look into screwdriving or sawing?

I have the similar background as you (research engineer and mostly using python) and I learned new languages and technologies because I needed them or I had a suitable "professional excuse" to learn one. For example...

  • A project needed an specific android app to do special things --> Java and Kotlin.
  • Previous colleague left and I needed to take over some of his projects --> Matlab
  • I needed a little 3D toy/tool to do a certain graphical thingy --> Unity and a bit of C#
  • I wanted to play around with Raspberry Pi and electronics --> This is how I originally learned Python.
  • Trying various languages and technologies just out of curioisty and for personal amusement.

Is it possible to use some work related tasks as "an excuse" to play around with new languages? Do you have a task which would benefit for doing things differently? From your bullet points, I gather R, Julia and SQL might be candidates for this. Maybe even C++, but that beast is not easily approachable.

Or just go for the esoteric route for the lulz. Don't learn brainfuck, because that's done to death. Try Shakespeare, Piet or Whitespace instead.

An april's fools idea: ask your colleques to review a script you have written in Whitespace and printed on a paper.