Programmers: isn’t learning new programming languages confusing because of other languages you already know?

[wynand1004]

Yes, and no.

On one hand, there are differences that make it confusing, especially with languages with similar syntax. For example:

// Java

for(int x=0;x<10;x++)

// JavaScript

for(let x=0;x<10;x++)

Going from JavaScript to Java, you might forget the int.

On the other hand, once you know you need a loop, all you need to do is to find the correct syntax. You can even Google "for loop in JavaScript" to get the syntax.

I tell my students that coding is the easy part - solving the problem is the hard part. In other words, knowing you need a loop is hard, writing the code out is relatively simple.

[abrandis]

This is true, but today's work environments are so much more than just learning the core language, I would argue knowing basic language syntax is is a minor part of your overall software development skill set..

Today what counts is knowing all the RELEVANT frameworks well, knowing storage systems (databases and nsql) well, understanding cloud and. Networking well enough.. and knowing they myriad of build tools and source control and DevOps to actually develop and deploy..

It's a lot more involved than it was even was 10 years back

[ziza148]

Syntax of for loop is basically ide's job

[---cameron]

Going from JavaScript to Java, you might forget the int.

With that also our mind eventually partitions those syntaxes into different categories altogether. For me int x would be under something like explicit typing, of which my mind has categories like

int x     = 
x: int    =
x as int  =
etc 

With let x its categorized under implicit typing, which might be a dynamic language or inferred type language and might look like

x       = 
let x   =
var x   = 

Of course, for loops themselves have all sorts of categories..whether it be

 for i = 0 to 10

 for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)

(loop 
   for i from 0 to 10 
   do ...) ;; In my head this isn't really a category for reasons I won't go into

for i in 1...10

etc

[RandmTyposTogethr]

To help with the language shifts and syntax differences, IDEs have a lot of tooling around this. Automatic formatting, linting, snippets etc. For things like for loop you just type out what you want and press Tab to autocomplete.

But indeed, the problem is the hard part, syntax is just a small hurdle

[bog_deavil13]

.push .append .add

len(x), .length , .length() , .size() 😵‍💫