The first week of Five Languages in Five Weeks is in the books. My week with TypeScript was a lot of fun. I learned quite a bit and really got a good feel for the language. The best part of the week was gaining an appreciation for why TypeScript exists. Building a superset of JavaScript with types, the latest feature set, and extra goodies provides enough benefits on top of JavaScript to make TypeScript worth a long look to supplant a lot of JavaScript code.

I’m currently working on learning Elixir as the Five in Five challenge moves into its second week. Elixir is quite different from the languages I typically use every day. This contrast is great because it can lead to new and interesting ways to look at old problems. The functional style may not always fit the problem, but thinking in that style is a chance to see things from another angle.

Finished

Pluralsight Course(s): Getting Started with TypeScript, TypeScript In-depth

Book(s): Tao of Seneca: Volume 3

Currents

Pluralsight Course(s): Securing ASP.NET Core with OAuth2 and OpenID Connect, Play by Play: Problem Solving in a Developer World, Getting Started with Elixir

Book(s): Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, Elixir in Action, Programming Elixir 1.3

On the Next…

I’m going to continue working with Elixir until Thursday. At that point I will start working with [Haskell][hs]. Haskell is an exciting language because I’m a little scared by it. I haven’t even looked at the syntax yet, but I know that it’s supposed to be quite a bit different than most programming languages. I think that’s a great thing. Yes, it’s going to be uncomfortable, but that’s what makes it exciting. As long as I get a “Hello World” program written for it and learn some of the basics I’ll consider my week with Haskell a success.