>> Haskell is a small, simple, logical language. C++ is a huge, messy, 
>> complex language. I don't see how learning an easy language should enable 
>> me to learn a hard language.
> 
> Heh, Haskell looks complicated and hard to learn to me.

Well, I guess there are probably people who look at something like

   x = (-b +- Sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)/2a

and go "OH MY GOD! That looks SO complicated!" But actually, if you know 
a little algebra, you discover that this contraption is actually quite 
straight forward.

> I just think that if you have the brain 
> to understand all of the constructs Haskell provides and why they're cool or 
> interesting, you have the capability to do the same with any other language, 
> especially a commonly used one.

Yes - because "commonly used" = "it's very easy". Oh, wait... :-P

>> I already *know* Java. ;-)
> 
> Oh; aren't there Java programming jobs around?

My problem is that I'm not finding *any* programming jobs, for *any* 
language. (Or rather, I can find a few jobs with titles like "senior 
systems architect" and "lead developer", but I'm not finding anything 
like "trainee programmer" or "graduate Java developer".)

>>> Why don't you put the time into it?
>> What makes you think I haven't?
> 
> The fact that you haven't learned C++ yet. =)

FWIW, I also failed to learn Latin. And that's *supposed* to be easy!

> Well, aside from having a good debugger, you just need to be honest with 
> yourself about what parts of your program you do or don't understand.

Well that's just it. It's not like I have any resources telling me how 
to actually program in C++. I just sort of have to take a guess. Oddly 
enough, that doesn't work very well.

> And of course, getting started is always hard. It took me at least two 
> attempts (separated by learning other languages like JavaScript and VB) to 
> learn C++.

Ah, VB... That *other* language I completely failed to learn.

>> As I say, the trouble is that if your program doesn't work, there is no 
>> way you can ever find out why.
> 
> Honestly, binary search with prints works in a lot of cases. If you know 
> what the program is supposed to do, then you can identify the places it does 
> something wrong.

Like I said, printing stuff out is usually the bit that won't work. 
(Although I gather C++ at least managed to fix this part.)

>> (Especially if you're using something like OpenGL. It's an extremely 
>> complicated API, and unless you pay money it's not possible to get hold of 
>> useful documentation.)
> 
> OpenGL can be difficult because if you do something wrong it will sometimes 
> silently fail. And yeah, it's hard to get good documentation (I learned it 
> by taking a class), but it's fun once you can use it so it may be worth 
> buying a book on.

Possibly a dump question, but... can you actually call a C interface 
from C++? At any rate, presumably you can completely forget Warp's 
"don't use pointers" rule if you want to talk to OpenGL - or any other 
API designed for C. ;-)

> Ultimately my point is this: I think you *can* learn it, and if you're 
> looking for a good programming job, I think you have a lot to gain by doing 
> so.

Hmm. A good Haskell programmer and a very bad C++ programmer. Which one 
would you hire?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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