Comment In the end (Score 1) 997
There are a couple of posts which express the philosophy that the particular tool does not matter. I agree 100%. Be adaptable to a given instance.
IMHO, if you have learned how to learn, then I suggest the following exercise:
1) pick a simple app, like a console or web-based address book (the UI does not matter in this exercise)
2) implement in language of choice ( I would recommend C, the reason will be clear shortly )
3) given a set of other interests {C++, Perl, Python, Java, C#, etc}, repeat #2 a couple of times
4) reflect on the experience of porting between languages
What you should be looking to do is to build confidence in yourself. Knowing how to do something as hard as possible, even though you may not need to do it in real life is a real confidence builder.
So, if you know how to make apps in C and can build an appreciation what higher level languages are doing for you, you will be able to speak intelligently and confidently with anyone regardless of the language or environment.
IMHO, if you have learned how to learn, then I suggest the following exercise:
1) pick a simple app, like a console or web-based address book (the UI does not matter in this exercise)
2) implement in language of choice ( I would recommend C, the reason will be clear shortly )
3) given a set of other interests {C++, Perl, Python, Java, C#, etc}, repeat #2 a couple of times
4) reflect on the experience of porting between languages
What you should be looking to do is to build confidence in yourself. Knowing how to do something as hard as possible, even though you may not need to do it in real life is a real confidence builder.
So, if you know how to make apps in C and can build an appreciation what higher level languages are doing for you, you will be able to speak intelligently and confidently with anyone regardless of the language or environment.